RTE News, Ireland
March 6 2010

Obama against Armenian ‘genocide’ bill

Saturday, 6 March 2010 08:25

US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has said the Obama administration
will do what it can do block further progress of a controversial bill
describing as genocide the killing by Turks of Armenians during WWI.

A US congressional committee narrowly approved the resolution on
Thursday, paving the way for a possible vote on Capitol Hill.

But Mrs Clinton said the administration would ‘work very hard’ to prevent this.

AdvertisementTurkey voiced strong protests after the vote and recalled
its ambassador from Washington for consultations.

The same congressional committee passed a similar resolution in 2007
but it failed to go anywhere after then-President George W Bush
weighed in strongly against it.

Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks but denies that up to 1.5m died and that it amounted to
genocide.

The committee’s resolution urges President Obama to use the term
genocide when he delivers his annual message on the Armenian massacres
in April.

He avoided using the term last year although as a presidential
candidate he said the killings were genocide.

Ronald Reagan was the only US president to publicly call the killings genocide.

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