US PANEL: ARMENIAN KILLING GENOCIDE
Aljazeera.net, Qatar
Oct 11 2007
Up to 1.5 million Armenians are believed to have been killed during
the first world war [EPA]
A US congressional panel has passed a symbolic resolution recognising
the mass killing of Armenians in Ottoman-era Turkey as genocide,
brushing aside White House warnings that it would do "great harm"
to ties with Nato ally Turkey, a key supporter in the Iraq war.
Turkey denounced the move, calling it an insult.
The House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27-21 to
recognise "the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1.5 million
Armenians as genocide".
It now goes to the entire chamber where there is likely to be a vote
by mid-November.
The resolution and a companion bill in the senate are strictly symbolic
and do not require the president’s signature.
‘No value’
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Abdullah Gul, Turkey’s president, said the resolution was
"unacceptable".
"Unfortunately some politicians in the United States of America have
closed their ears to calls to be reasonable and once again sought to
sacrifice big problems for small domestic political games," Gul was
quoted as saying by the state news agency Anatolian.
"This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the
past, is not regarded by the Turkish people as valid or of any value."
Ankara rejects the Armenian position, backed by many Western
historians, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at
the hands of Ottoman Turks during World War I.
Damage to ties
Turkey has warned of damage to bilateral ties and military co-operation
if congress passes the measure.
Armenian ‘genocide’
Armenians say they suffered discrimination, religious persecution,
heavy taxation and armed attacks under Ottoman Turks since 16th century
Thousands killed in 1894-1896 during a crackdown on Armenian
nationalists
Armenians claim 1.5m murdered or starved to death when Ottoman
Turks deported them to Syria and Mesopotamia deserts from 1915-1917
during WWI
Turkey says inflated toll due to ethnic clashes, disease and famine
All ties between Turkey and Armenia severed more than 90 years ago
George Bush, the US president, along with his secretaries of state
and defence, has warned against the step, as did a number of former
US secretaries of state.
"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass
killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with
a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror," Bush had said
before the vote.
The bulk of supplies for troops in Iraq pass through Turkey’s Incirlik
airbase, and Turkey provides thousands of truck drivers and other
workers for US operations in Iraq.
Supplies also flow from that base to troops in Afghanistan.
Advocates of the resolution said Turkey should simply acknowledge
history and stop threatening retaliation.
"I think our relationship is important enough to the United States
and Turkey to survive our recognition of the truth," Adam Schiff,
the chief sponsor of the resolution with many Armenian-Americans in
his district, said after the vote.
The committee vote followed hours of sometimes emotional debate over
whether, as the panel’s chairman Tom Lantos said, legislators should
"condemn this historic nightmare through the use of the word genocide"
and put military co-operation with an upset Turkey at risk.
Gregory Meeks, a black Democrat from New York, said congress should
focus on the failings of US history, such as slavery or the killings
of Native Americans.
"We have failed to do what we’re asking other people to do… We have
got to clean up our own house," he said.
The White House was "very disappointed," but a spokesman said Bush
hoped the whole House would reject the bill.