Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Sept 29 2007
Tancredo withdraws support of Armenian bill
It has emerged that a Republican candidate for the US presidency has
withdrawn his support of two resolutions pending in the US Congress
on an alleged genocide of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman
Turks.
Tom Tancredo, a Republican congressman from Colorado and also a
candidate for his party’s 2008 presidential nomination, withdrew his
status as a co-sponsor for the resolutions "without explanation," the
Armenian-American Political Action Committee (ARMENPAC) announced on
Thursday, suggesting that Tancredo bowed to pressure from the Turkish
lobby.
Also on Thursday in Washington, the US State Department reiterated
that there was no change in the US administration’s position, which
is against passage of the resolutions. Remarks by Tom Casey, deputy
spokesperson for the State Department, came during a daily press
briefing when he was asked to comment on a letter sent by eight
former US secretaries of state to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The
former secretaries of state — James Baker, Warren Christopher,
Lawrence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell
and George Shultz — urged Pelosi in their letter to "prevent the
resolution from reaching the House."
Casey referred the reporters to the signatories of the letter, and
added: "They are private citizens. And I assume if they made
representation to Speaker Pelosi on this, they did so because they
believed it was the right thing to do." Meanwhile, Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan reiterated strong opposition to the
resolutions in a speech delivered on Thursday at the Council on
Foreign Relations in New York.
"Should this draft reach the floor and the Congress of our ally
passes a unilateral, political judgment of no legal bearing on such a
sensitive and controversial issue, it will seriously impair
Turkish-American relations, with wide-ranging implications in our
overall cooperation," Erdoðan said. Ankara Today’s Zaman
29.09.2007
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