US HOUSE PANEL TO VOTE ON ARMENIAN ‘GENOCIDE’ RESOLUTION
Hurriyet
March 3 2010
Turkey
The U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee is
scheduled to vote Thursday on a resolution calling for formal U.S.
recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire as "genocide." The move could lead to Turkey’s ties worsening
with the United States and Armenia.
The non-binding resolution would call on President Barack Obama to
ensure U.S. policy formally refers to the killings as "genocide" and
to use the term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in
April – something he avoided doing last year.
Howard Berman, the Democratic chairman of the House’s Foreign Affairs
Committee, announced in early February his panel would vote on the
resolution March 4. If the resolution passes the committee, Democratic
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will decide if or when to bring it to a
House floor vote. She is likely to hold a floor vote if she sees a
majority of the 435 House members backing the resolution.
Turkey has warned that any House or Senate floor adoption of an
Armenian "genocide" resolution will lead to a major and lasting
deterioration of relations with the United States and sabotage a
planned reconciliation process with Yerevan.
A recent Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review analysis based on the
positions and voting trends of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s
46 members suggested the resolution would likely pass the panel’s
vote Thursday.
Obama’s position
Similar "genocide" resolutions passed the same committee in 2000,
2005 and 2007, but none of them could reach a House floor vote because
of extensive pressure from former presidents Bill Clinton and George W.
Bush.
The Clinton and Bush administrations strongly opposed the previous
Armenian "genocide" resolutions because they believed the congressional
passage would deeply hurt U.S. national security interests.
But the Obama administration has so far declined to play the U.S.
national security card on this matter. For example, during a speech
at a House subcommittee last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
used only weak diplomatic language to oppose the "genocide" measure.
"We are working very hard to assist Armenia and Turkey in their
(reconciliation) efforts and, you know, we would like to continue to
support that effort and not be diverted in any way at all," Clinton
said last Thursday.
By saying "not be diverted in any way," Clinton was apparently
referring to Turkey’s position that any U.S. congressional
endorsement of the "genocide" resolution would effectively kill the
Washington-backed normalization process with Armenia.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley indirectly iterated this
view Tuesday when he said, "The advancement of normalized relations
between Armenia and Turkey is in the interest of both countries."
"We understand how difficult this is, how emotional this is," Crowley
said. "There’s not a common understanding of what happened 90 years
ago, but we value the courageous steps both (Armenian and Turkish)
leaders have taken, and we just continue to encourage both countries
to move forward, not look backward."
In a related development, the Turkish Jewish community opposed the
Armenian "genocide" resolution. "We believe in the event that the
bill in question is adopted by the committee, both Turkish-American
relations will be harmed and such an action will in no way benefit the
Turkish-Armenian relations," a statement from community representatives
said.
Karabakh problem
U.S. diplomats in recent weeks have been urging the Turkish government
to implement the reconciliation process without any preconditions,
saying in the absence of this action, "genocide" resolutions in
Congress may be unstoppable.
The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed in October a
set of agreements under which Ankara and Yerevan would set up
normal diplomatic relations and reopen their land border. But the
normalization process is now faltering.
The Turkey-Armenia accord needs to be ratified by the parliaments of
the two neighbors before implementation, but there is no indication
of when either nation might bring the deal to a parliament vote.
The problem lying at the root of the issue is the unresolved
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s
close friend and ally. Turkey first wants to see progress toward a
resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict before opening its border
with Armenia, but there are no hints about this from the Armenians.
Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly Armenian-populated enclave inside
Azerbaijan, and parts of Azerbaijan proper have been under Armenian
occupation since a war in the early 1990s. As a result of this war,
Turkey has refused to set up normal diplomatic relations with Yerevan
and has kept the land border with Armenia closed since 1993.