PROPOSED GENOCIDE RESOLUTION NAMING TURKEY RISKS DAMAGE TO U.S. SECURITY, SAYS RICE, GATES
The Associated Press
International Herald Tribune, France
March 14 2007
WASHINGTON: The U.S. secretaries of state and defense contend that
the security of the United States is at risk from proposed legislation
that would declare up to 1.5 million Armenians victims of a genocide
on Turkish soil almost a century ago.
In joint identical letters to the speaker of the House of
Representatives and two other senior members, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the resolution
also could inflict significant damage on U.S. efforts to reconcile
the long-standing dispute between the West Asian neighbors.
The appeals went to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; Rep. John
Boehner, leader of the House’s Republican minority; and Rep. Tom
Lantos, the Democrat who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of one of the letters Wednesday.
It was dated March 7, two days after Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanian was in Washington to visit Rice and said afterward that
"Turkish lobbying at a government level" threatened to scuttle the
resolution.
A Democratic aide said Pelosi, who controls the House agenda, has
no plan to bring the proposal before the House soon. The aide spoke
anonymously because final plans have not been approved.
A congressional staff aide, also speaking without attribution,
said it is understood that Lantos, whose committee would deal with
the resolution, was awaiting word from Pelosi. Both the speaker and
Lantos have been supporters of the legislation.
The dispute involves the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians
during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of the
Turkish state. Armenian advocates contend they died in an organized
genocide; the Turks say they were victims of widespread chaos and
governmental breakdown as the 600-year-old empire collapsed in the
years before Turkey was born in 1923.
The bipartisan resolution was introduced on Jan. 30.
Passage of the resolution would harm "U.S. efforts to promote
reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia and to advance recognition
by Turkey of the tragic events that occurred to ethnic Armenians
under the Ottoman Empire," the letters said.
They said the United States is encouraging "our friends in Turkey to
re-examine their past with honesty and to reconcile with Armenia, as
well as security and stability in the broader Middle East and Europe."
Rice and Gates reminded the lawmakers of repercussions from a vote
in the French National Assembly last October to criminalize denial
of Armenian genocide. "The Turkish military cut all contacts with the
French military and terminated defense contracts under negotiation,"
the letters said.
Similar reaction against passage of the House resolution "could harm
American troops in the field, constrain our ability to supply our
troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and significantly damage our efforts
to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey at a key turning
point in their relations."
Turkey has NATO’s second-largest army. The U.S. Air Force has a major
base in southern Turkey near Iraq, which it has used for operations
in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Between the Persian Gulf War in
1991 and the Iraq war, warplanes from Incirlik Air Base enforced a
flight ban in Northern Iraq against the Iraqi air force.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
