October 9, 2007
Turkey Warns US on Armenia Genocide Bill
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 5:22 p.m. ET
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s president warned the U.S. government
Tuesday that their longtime ties will be harmed if Congress passes a
resolution putting the genocide label on the mass killings of ethnic
Armenians in Ottoman Turk lands during World War I.
President Abdullah Gul said in a letter there would be ”serious
troubles” if Congress adopted the measure, which is expected to be
considered Wednesday by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Armenians, backed by many historians, contend hundreds of thousands of
Armenians died in an organized genocide. Turks say the killings came
amid widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the 600-year-old
Ottoman Empire collapsed in the years before modern Turkey was born in
1923.
In recent years, Armenians have campaigned for international
recognition of the killings as genocide, and France is among countries
that officially adopted that view. Turkey, a member of NATO along with
France, broke military ties with the French government after that.
Gul’s complaint to President Bush came as the Turkish governing party
decided to ask for parliamentary approval for a military attack into
northern Iraq, seeking to wipe out bases used by guerrillas of a
Turkish Kurd separatist movement.
U.S. officials fear an incursion into Iraq’s Kurdish region could
destabilize one of the few areas in the country that have remained
relatively peaceful and have urged the Turkish government against
sending troops across the border.
The Bush administration is pressing Congress to reject the Armenian
resolution, which would have no binding effect on U.S. foreign policy.
But its supporters appear to have enough votes to win approval from
the full House.
Some analysts said passage could break the last constraints holding
the Turkish government back from striking into Iraq, despite the
rising anger of Turks over recent attacks by rebels in largely Kurdish
southeastern Turkey.
”What was preventing an operation was the fear that Turkey-U.S.
relations might reach a new low, and concerns not to harm relations
any further,” said Ihsan Dagi in the international relations
department of Middle East Technical University in Ankara.
”However, if the Armenian genocide resolution passes, that will be
the moment when relations between Turkey and the United States
collapse.”
Polls say the United States already is unpopular in Turkey due to
widespread opposition to the war in Iraq.
Many in the U.S. administration worry the Armenian resolution also
could lead Turkey to restrict crucial supply routes to Iraq and
Afghanistan and perhaps to close Incirlik, a strategic Turkish air
base used by the United States.
In Ankara, the U.S. Embassy warned that the resolution could spark
demonstrations and anti-American anger across Turkey and said that
American citizens should be vigilant.
Source: -Genocide.html