HOUSE PANEL MAY REVIVE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
By Richard Simon

Los Angeles Times
March 1 2010
CA

The measure, which risks offending Turkey, a U.S. ally, is being
handled more cautiously after the 2007 effort, when it appeared headed
toward approval.

Reporting from Washington – Two and a half years after lawmakers fell
short in their effort to pass a resolution to recognize the Armenian
genocide, sponsors of the long-debated measure are launching a new
bid to bring the issue before the House.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), who chairs the Foreign
Affairs Committee and backs the resolution, plans to bring it before
his panel Thursday.

It will come before the House "only if the votes are there to pass
it," Berman said. "Once we pass it out of committee, we’re going to
try to get those votes."

The resolution, which would officially recognize the mass killing of
Armenians by Ottoman Turks nearly a century ago as genocide, has run
into opposition from past Democratic and Republican administrations,
which have warned it would offend Turkey, an important U.S. military
ally.

The resolution’s supporters are hopeful they stand a better chance
this year because President Obama, as a candidate, said he "stood with
the Armenian American community in calling for Turkey’s acknowledgment
of the Armenian genocide." Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of
State Hillary Rodham Clinton had supported the resolution when they
were senators.

Obama, however, disappointed Armenian Americans last year when he
did not use the word "genocide" on the April 24 remembrance day,
instead referring to the killings as "one of the great atrocities of
the 20th century."

Although the Obama administration has not directly taken a position
on the resolution, Mike Hammer, spokesman for the National Security
Council, said the president had "consistently stated his position on
the events of 1915."

"Our interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just
acknowledgment of the facts," Hammer said in a statement. "We continue
to believe that the best way to advance that goal is for the Armenian
and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as a part of
their ongoing efforts to normalize relations."

Aram S. Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National
Committee of America, said, "The current administration’s conduct, at
least to date, stands in stark contrast to past administrations . . .

that used every opportunity to score points with Ankara by attacking
the broad, bipartisan congressional majority" in support of the
recognition effort.

F. Stephen Larrabee, an expert on U.S.-Turkish relations, warned in
a recent paper for the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica-based think tank,
that the resolution’s passage would deal a "serious blow to the Obama
administration’s efforts to put U.S.-Turkish relations on a firmer
footing, and it could prompt the Turks to take retaliatory action."

Similar resolutions were approved by the House in 1975 and 1984 but
did not make it through the Senate. In 2000, a genocide resolution
was headed to the House floor when the vote was abruptly called off
at the urging of President Clinton.

In 2007, after a majority of House members signed on as co-sponsors,
the resolution appeared headed toward approval. But two dozen lawmakers
withdrew their support after the George W. Bush administration and
Turkish government warned that passage of the resolution could lead
Turkey to block U.S. access to its air bases, which are used to get
supplies to U.S. troops in Iraq. A House vote was put off again.

After that effort, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), who
has long supported the resolution, is likely to be more cautious about
bringing it to the House floor. The resolution has 137 House sponsors
from both parties, including much of the delegation from California,
which has a large Armenian American population.

As the committee vote nears, lobbying from both sides of the issue
is expected to intensify.

Among the critics, Rep. Edward Whitfield (R-Ky.), co-chairman of the
Congressional Caucus on U.S.-Turkish Relations, said, "I think the
American people would agree that Congress should be focusing on ways
to strengthen our economy and create jobs and leave this debate to
the historians."

Berman, however, said that Congress, in championing human rights,
"certainly should place a priority on recognizing this historical
tragedy and calling it what it is."