BusinessWeek
March 6 2010
Armenia Resolution Won’t Get Full U.S. House Vote, Aide Says
March 06, 2010, 12:01 AM EST
By Peter S. Green and James Rowley
March 6 (Bloomberg) — Democratic lawmakers bowed to concerns
expressed by the Obama administration and agreed not to schedule a
full House vote on a resolution that labels as genocide the killing of
Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, a congressional aide said.
House leaders have no plans at this time for a chamber vote on the
measure, which a House committee approved on March 4, the House
Democratic leadership aide said yesterday. The aide spoke on the
condition of anonymity.
The resolution passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a 23-22
vote. Turkey responded by recalling its ambassador in Washington,
Namik Tan, for consultations.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had spoken out against a full
House vote on March 4 while attending a conference in Costa Rica. She
reiterated yesterday that President Barack Obama’s administration
`strongly opposes the resolution.’
A full House vote would `impede the normalization process between
Turkey and Armenia,’ State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in
Washington yesterday before word surfaced of the leadership’s
decision. `The best way for Turkey and Armenia to address their shared
past is through ongoing negotiations,’ he said.
The measure says the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern-day
Turkey, killed 1.5 million ethnic Armenians from 1915 to 1923. It asks
the president to ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects `appropriate
understanding’ of the atrocity and `the consequences of the failure to
realize a just resolution.’
Similar Recall
Turkey, a U.S. ally and NATO member, had recalled its U.S. ambassador
for a brief period in protest to a similar resolution passed by a
House committee in 2007. That measure never came up for a full House
vote.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on his Web site that the March 4
committee vote was `one-sided and remote from historical realities,’
and would hurt talks with Armenia.
`We’ve worked at every level with the American administration on a
variety of issues and we’ve always supported Mr. Obama’s vision of
peace,’ Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Ankara
yesterday. `We don’t expect this contribution of ours to be sacrificed
to a few local political games.’
The resolution showed a lack of `strategic vision’ on the part of U.S.
lawmakers who supported it, Davutoglu said.
Iranian Trade
Turkey has been expanding trade with Iran and Obama in December called
the country an `important player’ in efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear
program.
Turkey’s border and its trade relationship with Iran makes Turkish
support vital for U.S. efforts to use sanctions to prevent Iran from
developing a nuclear weapon, said Bulent Aliriza, Director of the
Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington.
While the Armenia-related resolution came from Congress and not the
administration, Turkey may not see any difference, further hampering
U.S. efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, said Henri Barkey, a fellow
at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.
`What is clearly very likely is that on Iran we are going to get less
cooperation from them,’ Barkey said before the aide disclosed that the
resolution won’t get a full House vote.
Turkey asserts that the resolution hurts Turkish and Armenian efforts
to renew diplomatic relations that were broken over Armenia’s military
intervention in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno- Karabakh region following the
1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.
Clinton’s Intervention
Turkey and Armenia agreed in October to renew relations after Clinton
helped the countries overcome a last-minute dispute before a signing
ceremony in Zurich. Under the accords, which are waiting to be
approved by Turkey’s parliament, a historical commission would
investigate the killings.
After the French parliament in 2006 approved legislation making it
criminal to deny that a genocide took place, Turkey said France had
done `irreparable damage’ to relations between the two countries.
The chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, a lobbying
group in Washington, praised the House committee shortly after it
passed its genocide resolution. `You cannot have a relationship or a
reconciliation based upon lies,’ Kenneth Hachikian said in an
interview after the vote. `Turkey can’t come to the table and say
let’s reconcile but we deny what the rest of the world acknowledges.’
The House resolution noted that England, France and Russia called the
killings a crime against humanity at the time, and that Turkey’s own
government indicted the leaders of the massacres after World War I.
–With assistance from Hans Nichols in Washington and Steve Bryant in
Ankara. Editors: Don Frederick, Mike Millard.
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From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress