Politics Daily
March 5 2010

Turkey Protests House Panel Vote to Call Armenian Deaths ‘Genocide’

Tom Kavanagh

By a narrow vote of 23 to 22, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has
passed a measure calling on President Obama to characterize Turkey’s
killing of 1.5 million Armenians during and immediately after World
War I as "genocide."

In response to the vote, the Washington Post reports, the Turkish
government recalled its U.S. ambassador and warned that the move
"could adversely affect our cooperation on a wide common agenda."
Turkey has contributed troops to the war effort in Afghanistan and
allowed the use of an air base to supply U.S. forces in Iraq. It also
sits on the U.N. Security Council and will have a vote on U.S.-sought
sanctions against Iran.

Turkey has long insisted that the deaths early last century were
caused by forced relocations and fighting at the end of the
600-year-old Ottoman Empire and were not part of a genocide campaign.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who voted against the resolution, said he
has sympathy for the victims, "but we’re in the 21st century. We have
troops in the field. We run the risk of losing a base of operations in
Turkey."

0/03/05/turkey-protests-house-panel-vote-to-call-a rmenian-deaths-genoci/