TURKEY URGES US ADMINISTRATION TO WORK AGAINST RESOLUTION
Today’s Zaman
March 3 2010
Turkey
Murat Mercan (C), who is having talks with US officials ahead of a
vote in the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, and lawmaker Å~^ukru
Elekdag (L) spoke at the Turkish Embassy in Washington on Monday.
Turkey has called on the US administration to exert more effort in
order to prevent the passage of a resolution that would recognize the
World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide
by a US House of Representatives committee, warning that its passage
could jeopardize Turkish parliamentary approval of protocols that
Turkey and Armenia signed last year to normalize ties.
In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan highlighted on Tuesday
that what is at stake if the resolution is approved is also the state
of bilateral relations between Ankara and Washington.
"Turkish-US relations are experiencing their most successful period
in history," Erdogan said. "I hope that they will not be damaged by
such initiatives. I maintain trust in the leadership and common sense
of President [Barack] Obama, who has been closely following efforts
toward the normalization of ties with Armenia."
In Washington, Murat Mercan, head of the Turkish Parliament’s Foreign
Affairs Commission, which is having talks with US officials ahead
of the vote, and Å~^ukru Elekdag, a lawmaker and former Turkish
ambassador to the US, spoke to reporters at the Turkish Embassy in
Washington on Monday.
"My impression is that the [Obama] administration is not fighting
against it very effectively," Elekdag said, while emphasizing that
Turkish cooperation with the United States was at risk if the measure
passed.
Also in Washington, The Hill, a congressional newspaper that publishes
daily when Congress is in session, reported on Tuesday that a trio of
House lawmakers have been encouraging their colleagues to stop the
genocide resolution before the key committee vote on Thursday. In
a Feb. 22 letter to committee members, the three co-chairs of the
Congressional Caucus on US-Turkey Relations asked their colleagues
to reject the resolution, warning that it will "have significant
negative consequences on current and future relations with Turkey."
At a time when doubts have been raised over whether the Jewish lobby,
which has extended a crucial hand in stopping past resolutions,
would rush to Turkey’s aid this time, as Erdogan angered many Jews
when he accused Israel of "inhumane" treatment of Palestinians,
the Washington-based Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs
(JINSA) announced on Monday that the resolution "should be opposed
and defeated."
"The Congress of the United States is not the place to debate the
history of other people in other times. It would be unacceptable for
Brazil to pass a resolution condemning 19th century American slavery
or Latvia to pass one on the War of 1812," JINSA said in a statement
posted on its Web site.
In Ä°stanbul, the Turkish-Jewish community said: "If members of
the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs accept
the resolution about the events of 1915, they will damage Turkey-US
relations. They are not making any contributions to Turkey-Armenia
relations."