Gulf News, UAE
March 5 2010

Turks pay price for supporting Palestinians

Timing of US resolution dubbing massacre of Armenians ‘genocide’ is suspicious

Gulf News
Published: 00:00 March 6, 2010

Ankara must have known its new positioning in Middle East politics,
which angered Israel, will have some sort of consequences. After all,
the Israelis never expected that their supposedly close Turkish allies
would lobby international public opinion to condemn Israeli war crimes
in Gaza. The highlight of the new Turkish attitude was when Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan walked out of a panel discussion, in
Davos World Economic Forum last year, to protest Israeli President
Shimon Peres’ defence of Israel’s devastating offensive on Gaza.

But Turkey apparently never anticipated that the consequences of its
new Middle East policy would come in a politically-motivated
resolution passed on Thursday by a US House committee calling the
Ottoman-era massacre of Armenians "genocide."

The US has been against the label for years, even as some European
nations passed such resolutions few years ago. The move by the US
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has understandably
angered Ankara, which recalled its ambassador. Turkish Foreign
Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called on President Barack Obama to block the
resolution.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million people were killed during First World
War by their Ottoman rulers as the empire was falling apart. Turkey
argues 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in
what was a civil strife when Armenians rose up for independence and
sided with invading Russian troops.

The US has actually backed last October’s talks between Turkey and
Armenia to end decades of hostility. The two countries also signed a
deal to establish diplomatic relations and open their border.

Thus, the timing is calling into question the motive behind the
committee’s resolution, especially when the sponsors of the bill are
three well-known pro-Israel lawmakers. The Turks should have known
that this was coming. Other countries in the region, despite their
close relations to the US, were faced with similar `political
extortion’ tactics from pro-Israeli members of the US Congress.
Welcome to the Middle East politics.

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