TURKISH DAILY NEWS ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE BILL: TROUBLES THREATEN TURKEY
PanARMENIAN.Net
09.07.2007 14:24 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Cuneyd Zapsu, a top adviser to Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, stated that a secret meeting was held
with Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy
Pelosi this February on H. Res. 106 – the Armenian Genocide bill.
Richard Holbrooke, a Democrat and a former top diplomat, arranged
and attended the meeting. Holbrooke is known for his role in putting
an end to the war in Bosnia as assistant to the Secretary of State
in former president Bill Clinton’s administration, Turkish Daily
News reports. Zapsu voiced the Turkish government’s concerns over
the resolution, saying its passage by the House would seriously hurt
bilateral ties with Ankara. The Pelosi-Zapsu meeting took place shortly
after Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul also visited the U.S. capital in
early February. But neither Gul nor three Turkish parliamentary teams
visiting Washington one after another succeeded in their "struggle"
against the bill and had talks with the House speaker.
At the same time the newspaper reminds that a number of worrying
developments are taking place in recent weeks for Turkey, since
the number of representatives cosponsoring the measure in late June
rose to 218 in the 435-member House. "Obtaining the support of 218
lawmakers does not automatically enable the Armenians to force a
House floor vote for the resolution, but means the overcoming of a
psychological threshold. The resolution likely would reach the House
floor agenda any time after early September, when Congress returns
to work after a summer recess in August. But still this would come
after critical parliamentary elections in Turkey on July 22," the
newspaper underlines.