elp_ArmeniaTurkey_Rapprochement/1975603.html

Radi o Free Europe/Radio Liberty
March 05, 2010

U.S. Resolution Could Help Armenia-Turkey Rapprochement

The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee has narrowly passed another
resolution recognizing the Ottoman-era mass killing of Armenians in
Turkey as genocide. This was the second such resolution passed by the
committee in less than three years and third in less than five years.

In 2007 when the House committee approved a resolution asking the U.S.
president to recognize the Armenian killings as genocide, critics
argued forcefully that the passage of such measure could put the U.S.
troops in Iraq in harm’s way and damage already deteriorating
relations between Ankara and Washington.

Almost every member of the Bush administration, including former
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates, issued statements with stern warning of the dire consequences
passage of the resolution would have for U.S. interests in Iraq and
elsewhere in the wider Middle East.

The pressure from the Bush administration worked; though the committee
passed the resolution, it was never sent to the full House of
Representatives for a final vote.

Yesterday’s vote was different. The pressure from the White House was
not so visible and there were no public attempts to prevent the vote.
The statements coming from the White House and the State Department
repeated the same line, that Turkey and Armenia should move forward in
implementing the protocols to normalize relations.

The Obama administration also refrained from taking sides publicly on
the issue. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, for one, had a chance
to appeal to committee members not to consider the Armenian resolution
when she was testifying before the House panel in late February.

It became known just hours before the vote on March 4 that Clinton had
spoken with committee Chairman Howard Berman expressing concern that
further congressional action could jeopardize the fragile process of
rapprochement between Yerevan and Ankara.

Turkey’s reaction to the vote has been furious. Turkey accused the
Obama administration of not doing enough to stop the vote in the House
committee, and has recalled its ambassador in Washington for
consultations. The Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said
today the Obama administration had not sufficiently put its weight
behind efforts to block the vote.

Why were Obama administration officials reluctant to put strong
pressure on Chairman Berman or on other fellow Democrats in the House
committee, where they have a majority?

One reason could be the level of U.S. frustration with Turkey’s
leaders. The patience with Ankara’s handling of the Armenian-Turkish
issue may be running out. The administration was hoping that the
protocols wouldn’t be held hostage by domestic politics in Turkey and
be delayed in the long process of parliamentary politicking.

President Barack Obama and Clinton have told Turkish leaders many
times that they should not tie the ratification of the protocols to
the resolution of other difficult issues, such as the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict. Just a day before the committee vote, Obama urged his
Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul to speed up ratification.

Now that the House panel has passed the resolution, which could go to
the full House for a vote at any time, the White House may now have a
tool to break Ankara’s unwillingness to move forward and normalize its
relations with neighboring Armenia. The Obama administration can now
say, "Ratify the protocols or the genocide resolution will go to the
full House for a vote."

There is, however, another trend that is unlikely to be reversed. It’s
becoming increasingly difficult for a U.S. presidential candidate,
including Obama, to promise Armenian-Americans to recognize their
century-old tragedy as genocide, and then break that promise once
elected president. How many times can Obama skip the word "genocide"
in his annual proclamation on the mass killings of Armenians in the
Ottoman Empire? He already did last year. What will happen this year?

— Hrair Tamrazian