TURKEY, ON EDGE, WATCHES U.S. VOTE ON ARMENIA
By Marc Champion
Wall Street Journal
2748704541304575099843692377622.html?mod=googlenew s_wsj
March 4 2010
Washington’s Shift on Armenian Genocide Debate Angers Ankara
ISTANBUL–A U.S. congressional vote on how to define the 1915 slaughter
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, expected Thursday, is turning
into a game of brinksmanship between the White House and Ankara.
In previous years, Congress has attempted to pass a resolution to
recognize the Armenian events as genocide. Such a resolution would
inflame Turkey and has brought vows from past U.S. administrations
that they would block the bill, a nod to Turkey’s role as a key ally
of Washington in the Middle East.
This year, in a shift of U.S. position, the Obama administration
isn’t lobbying publicly to block the resolution, say officials and
lobbyists involved in the issue. That fact has triggered hopes among
Armenians who have long lobbied foreign governments for recognition of
the killings as genocide–and raised alarm in Turkey at the prospect
that the country’s ally might rule against it on a neuralgic issue
of history and identity.
On Thursday, at least one Turkish national TV channel, NTV, plans
to air the U.S. vote live; others are expected to do likewise. Two
delegations of Turkish lawmakers have been in Washington this week,
lobbying the committee to block the move.
"There would be consequences," if the vote passes, said Suat
Kiniklioglu, a legislator and deputy chairman of external affairs
for the ruling Justice and Development party. "Turks find it very
offensive to be equated with Nazis."
"We are working well with the U.S. in a number of areas–in Iraq,
in Pakistan, Afghanistan, on the Middle East peace process, Iran and
Syria. In all these areas, if this passes through the Congress there
would be an impact," said Mr. Kiniklioglu, speaking by phone from
Washington. Turkey has the second-largest armed forces in the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization and is a key U.S. ally in the region.
The Obama administration has largely remained silent on the resolution,
a break from previous administrations’ actively lobbying against
similar measures. Asked this week about how its passage would
effect bilateral relations with Turkey, State Department spokesman
P.J. Crowley said, "We have a pretty good idea of how everyone feels
on the issue."
Another State Department official said the administration continues
to support efforts by Turkish and Armenian officials to come to a
consensus on the incident as part of the two country’s negotiations
over re-establishing diplomatic ties.
Thursday’s vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee would come less
than two months before President Barack Obama is due to make an annual
White House statement on April 24 commemorating the killings. The
committee vote wouldn’t be binding, but it would open the floor to
a vote on the floor of Congress, something Turkey is anxious to avoid.
Up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians are estimated to have died through
executions, mass deportations, starvation and other means in 1915.
Armenians, and many historians, say the killings were an attempt to
erase Armenians from Eastern Anatolia and were therefore genocide.
Turkey argues that the events, while tragic, can’t be compared to the
Jewish holocaust and don’t amount to genocide. Turkish officials note
that the killings took place during World War I, as the Ottoman Empire
was disintegrating and under attack from all sides, including Russia.
Armenians, traditional allies of Russia, were seen as a fifth column.
Even the historical record, they say, was warped by the wartime
propaganda needs.
"Turks feel the way these events happened is not well known abroad
and only in a one-sided way," said Ilter Turan, a professor of
political science at Bilgi University in Istanbul. He said a vote to
recognize genocide would likely trigger anti-American demonstrations
and retaliation by the government.
Last year, Mr. Obama avoided using the term genocide in his April 24
statement. He made it clear he was doing so because he didn’t want to
destroy efforts under way between Ankara and Yerevan to reopen their
border and establish relations, and form a joint historical commission.
A year later, efforts have stalled to ratify the border-opening
protocols that each government has signed. Turkey has made it clear
it sees ratification as linked to progress in settling a territorial
dispute between Armenia and its other Turkic neighbor, Azerbaijan,
in the enclave of Nagorno Karabakh. Though Karabakh isn’t mentioned
in the protocols, Turkey wants Armenia to pull troops out of several
buffer zones around the enclave, which is in Azerbaijan, before it
will ratify them. So far, there is little sign of that happening.
Analysts say the U.S. administration’s silence looks like an attempt
to increase pressure on Turkey to ratify the reconciliation protocols.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s focused on promoting the protocols
in testimony on Capitol Hill last month, rather than warning directly
against a vote to recognize genocide.
The performance was welcomed by the Armenian National Committee of
America, a lobby, which noted that "for the first time in a generation"
a sitting secretary of state hadn’t lobbied against the genocide
classification. But just as the U.S. is likely to ignore Turkish
threats, Ankara is unlikely to buckle to pressure on the protocols,
analysts say.
"I don’t think it will work," said Bulent Aliriza, director of the
Turkey project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
a Washington think tank that hosted one of the Turkish delegations
this week. "The movement on Capitol Hill doesn’t seem to be making
the Turks reconsider–instead we have the Turks saying we have a whole
range of issues the U.S. needs us to cooperate on and well use these
to respond. This has the potential to spin out of control," he said.
–Peter Spiegel contributed to this article.