US HAS OPPORTUNITY TO SET RECORD STRAIGHT
Boston Globe
March 2 2010
MA
IN RESPONSE to Gunay Evinch, president of the Assembly of Turkish
American Associations ("Genocide resolution would undo Turkish,
Armenian accord," Letters, Feb. 24): Evinch tries in vain to
downgrade the current congressional effort to affirm the Armenian
genocide by likening it to "its failed predecessors" and stating that
"the resolution threatens to contravene long-standing US policy to
avoid such legislative enactments." However, resolutions citing the
Armenian genocide have passed in Congress in 1975, 1984, and 1996,
and Congress has gone on the record against other acts of genocide.
He also maintains that a congressional resolution would threaten the
recently signed Turkish-Armenian protocols. Yet Turkey jump-started
the protocol derailment process, the day after signing the accord,
when Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu pegged the ratification of the
protocols to the unrelated issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
– an effort in opposition to the letter of the protocols and the
positions held by the US and other mediating powers.
Finally, and not surprisingly, Evinch attempts to use the standard
excuse of there being no consensus as a reason for not passing
the Armenian genocide resolution. The International Association
of Genocide Scholars has strongly supported US recognition of the
Armenian genocide. In addition, 42 US states have passed similar
measures, and the current resolution in Congress has the support of
countless human rights, academic, ethnic, and religious organizations.
On Thursday members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will have
the opportunity to help set the record straight.
Ara Nazarian Cochairman Armenian National Committee of Massachusetts
Watertown