TURKEY OPPOSES U.S. GENOCIDE RESOLUTION
By Desmond Butler
The Associated Press
Oct 10 2007
WASHINGTON (AP) – Turkey is making a final direct appeal to
U.S. lawmakers to reject a resolution that would declare the World
War I-era killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians a genocide.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee was to vote Wednesday on the
measure that is opposed by the Bush administration and which Turkey
has insisted could severely damage U.S. relations with a NATO ally that
has been a major portal for U.S. military operations in the region.
Those threats were coming as Turkey’s government was seeking
parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation to chase
separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq.
The move, opposed by the United States, could open a new war front
in the most stable part of Iraq.
"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic
mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A measure of the potential problem came in a warning the U.S. Embassy
in Ankara issued Tuesday to U.S. citizens in Turkey.
"If, despite the administration’s concerted efforts against this
resolution, it passes committee and makes its way to the floor of the
House for debate and a possible vote, there could be a reaction in the
form of demonstrations and other manifestations of anti-Americanism
throughout Turkey," the statement said.
The basic dispute involves the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians
by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed
by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey
denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been
inflated, and insists that those killed were victims of civil war
and unrest.
Armenian-American interest groups also have been rallying supporters
in the large diaspora community to pressure lawmakers to make sure that
a successful committee vote leads to consideration by the full House.
The bill seemed to have enough support on the committee for passage,
but the majority was slight and some backers said they feared that
Turkish pressure would narrow it. Most Republicans, who are a minority
on the committee, were expected to vote against the resolution.
On Tuesday, Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly
of America, sought to shore up support in letters to the committee’s
chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and its ranking Republican member,
Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
"We have a unique opportunity in this Congress, while there are still
survivors of the Armenian genocide living among us, to irrevocably
and unequivocally reaffirm this fact of history," he said.
The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II,
was to give the opening invocation to the House’s session ahead of
the vote Wednesday.
Erdogan adviser Bagis said the resolution would make it hard for
his government to continue close cooperation with the United States
and resist calls from the public to go after the Kurdish rebels after
deadly attacks on soldiers in recent weeks. Turkey previously has said
it would prefer that the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in
northern Iraq crack down on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
"If the Armenian genocide resolution passes, then I think that the
possibility of a cross-border operation is very high," said Ihsan
Dagi, a professor of International Relations at Middle East Technical
University in Ankara, the Turkish capital.
The United States reiterated on Tuesday its warnings against an
incursion.
"If they have a problem, they need to work together to resolve it,
and I’m not sure that unilateral incursions are the way to go,"
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.
Many in the United States also fear that a public backlash in Turkey
could lead to restrictions on crucial supply routes through Turkey
to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the closure of Incirlik, a strategic
air base in Turkey used by the U.S. Air Force.
Bagis, a member of the Turkish Parliament, underscored that
possibility.
"Let us not forget that 75 percent of all supplies to your troops in
Iraq go through Turkey," he said.