TURKISH LAWMAKER WARNS OVER DRAFT ARMENIAN RESOLUTION

Today’s Zaman
March 4 2010
Turkey

A Turkish lawmaker has issued a firm warning that approval of a draft
Armenian resolution at the foreign relations committee of the US House
of Representatives would hurt the United States, Armenia and Turkey.

"The sole winner from all this would be the emotions and the ego of
the Armenian lobby. Approval of the draft resolution would inflict
damage to the United States, Armenia and Turkey," Murat Mercan, head
of Turkish parliament’s foreign relations committee, told reporters
on Wednesday.

The foreign relations committee of the US House of Representatives
is set to vote Thursday a draft Armenian resolution on incidents of
1915 in the Ottoman Empire.

Mercan and other Turkish lawmakers were in Washington, D.C. to head
off the approval of the resolution.

Turkish lawmakers have met several US Congress members, including House
committee head Howard Berman, Ike Sleton, William Delahunt, Joe Wilson,
Bopb Inglis, Ted Poe and Brad Sherman as well as representatives from
a number of Washington-based think-tanks.

In 2007, the committee approved a similar resolution 27-21, even
though the former US president and other key figures from the US
administration lobbied against it.

Mercan said he told Berman that the approval of the resolution would
have had a huge impact on Turkish-US relations as well as on protocols
between Turkey and Armenia that sought to resume diplomatic ties and
open a border gate between the two countries.

"Regardless of the outcome of the vote, Turkey will not be the side
that loses. The losers would be others," Mercan said.