COMMENTARY: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE SHOULD BE RECOGNIZED

McClatchy Washington Bureau
/commentary-armenian-genocide-should.html
March 4 2010

The Armenian genocide resolution is back before Congress, and it
faces an uphill battle for reasons having nothing to do with whether
a genocide occurred almost 100 years ago. Turkey is opposed to the
resolution and that makes Congress nervous because of that nation’s
strategic importance in the Middle East.

As we have said many times: The facts are clear. About 1.5 million
Armenians were deported, starved and murdered by the Ottoman Empire
in the 20th century’s first genocide. The modern Turkish republic is
not guilty of those crimes, nor are today’s Turkish people. Yet they
reject the idea that this history is formally recognized.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee is set to vote today on a
resolution declaring that "the Armenian Genocide was conceived and
carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923." That measure
is expected to pass the committee, but will have difficulty when it
reaches the House floor.