US VIES TO PLACATE TURKEY AFTER ARMENIA VOTE
Agence France Presse
Oct 11 2007
WASHINGTON (AFP) – The White House, fearing fallout on the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, battled Thursday to repair ties with Turkey after
a US vote to label the World War I massacre of Armenians as "genocide."
But Ankara signaled its displeasure by recalling its US ambassador
for consultations following Wednesday’s vote by the House of
Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.
"Turkey is playing a critical role in the war on terror and this action
is problematic for everything we’re trying to do in the Middle East
and would cause great harm to our efforts," White House spokesman
Scott Stanzel said.
After the non-binding resolution was adopted by the House panel,
President George W. Bush’s administration said it would lobby the
full Democratic-led chamber against taking it further.
But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stressed: "It has come out of committee
and it will go to the floor." Reports said a debate by the chamber
as a whole was likely in November.
Fueling tensions, Turkey’s government will formally ask parliament
next week to approve an incursion into northern Iraq to crack down
on Kurdish rebels taking refuge there, according to a ruling party
official.
The Bush administration, worried about destabilizing one of the
few pockets of calm in Iraq, has urged Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan’s government against a cross-border raid on the Kurdistan
Workers’ Party (PKK).
According to the Armenians, 1.5 million of their kinsmen were killed
from 1915 to 1923 under an Ottoman Empire campaign of deportation
and murder.
Rejecting the genocide label, Turkey argues that 250,000 to 500,000
Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when
Armenians took up arms for independence during World War I.
Asked whether she was concerned a heated House debate could damage
the crucial alliance between the United States and its NATO partner
Turkey, Pelosi said she had been hearing such talk for 20 years.
"This isn’t about the Erdogan government, this is about the Ottoman
Empire," the Democratic speaker added.
But Egemen Bagis, vice chairman of Erdogan’s AKP ruling party, said
the resolution was very much a slight on the modern-day Turkey that
emerged from the Ottoman ruins.
"Those who claim Turkey is bluffing should not mock Turkey on live
TV," Bagis said in Washington, after several House members suggested
in Wednesday’s debate that any Turkish reaction would be short-lived.
Ambassador Nabi Sensoy, who personally led an intensive lobbying
campaign ahead of the vote, is being recalled to Ankara to discuss
the fallout, a Turkish foreign ministry official said.
Speaking in London, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that 70
percent of air cargo, 30 percent of fuel shipments and 95 percent of
new mine resistant armored vehicles destined for US forces in Iraq
go through Turkey.
"The Turks have been quite clear about some of the measures they
would have to take if this resolution passes," he said, citing the
example of Turkish sanctions against France.
Turkey has refused to grant overflight rights to the French air
force since the lower house in Paris last year called the Armenians’
suffering a genocide.
If Turkey withdraws US access to the vast Incirlik air base, "just
imagine what this will do to the United States," Bagis said at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Incirlik is a major staging point for US military supplies bound for
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bagis added that Turkish frustration over the PKK was reaching a
boiling point, and that the "only remedy" to the Armenia vote was US
cooperation against the Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq.
Hailing the House panel’s vote, Armenian President Robert Kocharian
said: "The fact that Turkey has adopted a position of denial of
genocide does not mean that it can bind other states to deny the
historic truth as well."
But Ankara continued to simmer over what President Abdullah Gul
denounced as "petty games of domestic politics" by US lawmakers,
with many of the House panel members from districts with large
ethnic-Armenian communities.