The Guardian, UK
Oct 12 2007
Turkey-US ‘genocide’ row grows
Turkey is threatening to withold cooperation with the US over a
Congress resolution accusing the Ottoman Turks of genocide against
Armenians.
October 12, 2007 9:46 AM
The ramifications of a US resolution describing the deaths of more
than a million Armenians in Turkey in 1917 as a "genocide" are
considered by a number of today’s papers.
The resolution was endorsed by the House of Representatives foreign
affairs committee and could go before the full house as early as
today.
Turkey, which claims killings happened on both sides and rejects the
term "genocide", responded to the committee decision by withdrawing
its ambassador from the United
States for "consultations".
"Ankara also raised the possibility of taking action against the
United States, a Nato ally, including a review of America’s right to
use an airforce base in southeastern Turkey for operations in Iraq,"
reports the Times.
But the Financial Times notes that "threats of retaliation against
the US if the House adopted the resolution, made by some Turkish
politicians, may be premature".
"Several diplomats pointed out yesterday that the Bush administration
and much of the US foreign policy establishment took Ankara’s side in
opposing the resolution, a fact that could influence any official
Turkish response," the paper went on.
The Independent’s veteran Middle East correspondent, Robert Fisk,
writes that Winston Churchill used the word "holocaust" about the
massacre of the Armenians "years before the Nazi murder of six
million Jews".
He adds: "Nor are the parallels with Nazi Germany’s persecution of
the Jews idle ones."
In its leader, the Guardian speaks of a "broad consensus" outside
Turkey that "the massacre and forced deportations of more than a
million Armenians in the latter years of the Ottoman
empire were nothing less than genocide".
It warns the Ankara administration: "The issue is not just a
lightning rod for nationalists, but a litmus test for the
human-rights agenda on which EU entry talks depend."
This is an edited extract from The Wrap, our digest of the daily
papers.