The Age, Australia
March 5 2010
Turkish anger at US genocide vote
PETER GREEN, WASHINGTON
March 6, 2010 .
TURKEY has recalled its ambassador from Washington after a
congressional committee brushed aside concerns raised by the Obama
administration and passed a resolution calling the World War I
killings of Armenians genocide.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Democrat representative
Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on the
eve of the hearing to express concern, administration officials said.
The committee approved the measure on a 23-22 vote. The resolution
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 US foreign policy reflects ”appropriate
understanding” of the atrocity and ”the consequences of the failure
to realise a just resolution”.
Following the vote, the Turkish government said ambassador Namik Tan
would leave for Ankara. Turkey, a US ally, took that same step as a
protest the day after a House committee approved a similar resolution
in 2007. That measure never came up for a full House vote.
The new resolution now goes to the Democratic leadership of the House
of Representatives, which will decide whether and when to hold a full
vote on the issue.
”We do not believe that the full Congress will or should vote on that
resolution and we have made that clear to all the parties involved,”
Mrs Clinton said.
”It’s serious,” Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at
the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said
of the potential diplomatic damage caused by the committee vote.
”The administration did not focus on this, and the likelihood of the
normalisation” between Turkey and Armenia ”continuing is a lot less
this afternoon than it was this morning”, he said.
Turkey’s border with Iran and its trade relationship with the Islamic
regime there makes Turkish support vital for US efforts to use trade
sanctions to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, said Mr
Aliriza.
Turkey asserts that the genocide 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, and have remained
stalled on that issue and the Ottoman-era killings.
Turkey and Armenia agreed in October to renew relations after Mrs
Clinton helped the countries overcome a last-minute dispute before a
signing ceremony in Zurich.
US President Barack Obama called Turkish President Abdullah Gulon
Thursday to urge the ”rapid ratification” of an accord on normal
ties with Armenia.
”Our focus is on ensuring that we continue to make progress on an
issue that for almost a hundred years has divided two countries,”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Turkish lawmakers visiting Washington this week said the House
resolution would be damaging and inflame the Turkish public.
Turkey has long objected to similar congressional declarations,
arguing that the deaths of Armenians were part of a wide-ranging
conflict and were not orchestrated by Turkish leaders of the time.
BLOOMBERG, WASHINGTON POST