JEWISH GROUP JOINS FIGHT AGAINST ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
oup-joins-fight-against-armenian-genocide-resoluti on/
Mar 2nd, 2010
Washington
WASHINGTON (Hurriyet)-Turkey’s ambassador to the US, Namik Tan,
has enlisted the support of a Jewish organization in opposing the
Armenian Genocide Resolution. The Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs (JINSA) released on Tuesday a position paper titled,
"The Armenian Resolution Should be Opposed and Defeated."
Ambassador Namik Tan met with "the representatives of almost all
Jewish lobbies and organizations in Washington" over the weekend,
according to sources in the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C.
According to the same sources, Tan met with the representatives of
"eight or 10 Jewish organizations," including the Anti-Defamation
League (ADL); American Jewish Community (AJC) and B’nai B’rith
International. They said the meetings were not only focused on the
Armenian Genocide bill.
JINSA, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization that addresses the
security requirements of both the U.S. and Israel, released its report
a day after Tan’s meetings.
The report said that: "to the extent that either side believed
opposition to the resolution was a test of loyalty, or tied it to
extraneous issues, they made a mistake. The Armenian resolution -driven
largely by the Armenian-American community- should be opposed and
defeated. But the reasons stand without regard to the [increasingly
difficult] behavior of the Turkish government and without regard
to [increasingly difficult] Turkish-Israeli or Turkish-American
relations."
"As the Turkish government began to slide – and then rush – away from
its relationship with Israel and slide – and then rush – toward new
accommodations with Syria and Iran, the Jewish community has become
less inclined to use its organizational skill on behalf of the agenda
of a country that is less inclined toward the Western side of the great
divide. It doesn’t help that the Turkish ‘request’ for ‘help’ has begun
to sound more like a threat of damage yet to come," the report added.
Tan already met with the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, Howard Berman last week as well as several key members of
the House, the embassy source confirmed. He also met with the Turkish
associations working in the United States last week.