The New York Times
House Panel Raises Furor on Armenian Genocide
Doug Mills/The New York Times
/11prexy.html?hp
Turks opposed to the genocide resolution attended a House Foreign
Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and CARL HULSE
Published: October 11, 2007
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 – A House committee voted on Wednesday to condemn
the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey in World War I as an act of
genocide, rebuffing an intense campaign by the White House and
warnings from Turkey’s government that the vote would gravely strain
its relations with the United States.
The vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee was nonbinding and
so largely symbolic, but its consequences could reach far beyond
bilateral relations and spill into the war in Iraq.
Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution was
approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the
American war effort, which includes permission to ship essential
supplies through Turkey and northern Iraq.
President Bush appeared on the South Lawn of the White House before
the vote and implored the House not to take up the issue, only to have
a majority of the committee disregard his warning at the end of the
day, by a vote of 27 to 21.
`We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that
began in 1915,’ Mr. Bush said in remarks that, reflecting official
American policy, carefully avoided the use of the word genocide. `This
resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings,
and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally
in NATO and in the global war on terror.’
The resolution, which was introduced early in the current session of
Congress and which has quietly moved forward over the last few weeks,
provoked a fierce lobbying fight that pitted the politically
influential Armenian-American population against the Turkish
government, which hired equally influential former lawmakers like
Robert L. Livingston, Republican of Louisiana, and Richard
A. Gephardt, the former Democratic House majority leader who backed a
similar resolution when he was in Congress.
Backers of the resolution said Congressional action was overdue.
`Despite President George Bush twisting arms and making deals, justice
prevailed,’ said Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California
and a sponsor of the resolution. `For if we hope to stop future
genocides we need to admit to those horrific acts of the past.’
The issue of the Armenian genocide, beginning in 1915, has perennially
transfixed Congress and bedeviled presidents of both parties. Ronald
Reagan was the only president publicly to call the killings genocide,
but his successors have avoided the term. When the issue last arose in
2000, a similar resolution also won approval by a House committee, but
President Clinton then succeeded in persuading a Republican speaker,
J. Dennis Hastert, to withdraw the measure before the full House could
vote. That time, too, Turkey had warned of canceling arms deals and
withdrawing support for American air forces then patrolling northern
Iraq under the auspices of the United Nations.
The new speaker, Nancy Pelosi, faced pressure from Democrats –
especially colleagues in California, New Jersey and Michigan, with
their large Armenian populations – to revive the resolution again
after her party gained control of the House and Senate this year.
There is Democratic support for the resolution in the Senate, but it
is unlikely to move in the months ahead because of Republican
opposition and a shortage of time. Still, the Turkish government has
made it clear that it would regard House passage alone as a harsh
American indictment.
The sharply worded Turkish warnings against the resolution, especially
the threats to cut off support for the American war in Iraq, seemed to
embolden some of the resolution’s supporters. `If they use this to
destabilize our solders in Iraq, well, then shame on them,’ said
Representative Joseph Crowley, a Democrat from New York who voted for
it.
The Democratic leadership, however, appeared divided. Representative
Rahm Emanuel, the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House, who worked in
the Clinton White House when the issue came up in 2000, opposes the
resolution.
In what appeared to be an effort to temper the anger caused by the
issue, Democrats said they were considering a parallel resolution that
would praise Turkey’s close relations with the United States even as
the full House prepares to consider a resolution that blames the
forerunner of modern Turkey for one of the worst crimes in history.
`Neither of these resolutions is necessary,’ a White House spokesman,
Gordon D. Johndroe, said Wednesday evening. He said that Mr. Bush was
`very disappointed’ with the vote.
A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed beginning in 1915 in a
systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians
out of eastern Turkey. Turks acknowledge that hundreds of thousands of
Armenians died but contend that the deaths, along with thousands of
others, resulted from the war that ended with the creation of modern
Turkey in 1923.
Mr. Bush discussed the issue in the White House on Wednesday with his
senior national security aides. Speaking by secure video from Baghdad,
the senior American officials in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus and
Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, raised the resolution and warned that its
passage could harm the war effort in Iraq, senior Bush aides said.
Appearing outside the West Wing after that meeting, Defense Secretary
Robert M. Gates noted that about 70 percent of all air cargo sent to
Iraq passed through or came from Turkey, as did 30 percent of fuel and
virtually all the new armored vehicles designed to withstand mines and
bombs.
`They believe clearly that access to airfields and to the roads and so
on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this resolution passes
and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they will,’ Mr. Gates
said, referring to the remarks of General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker.
Turkey severed military ties with France after its Parliament voted in
2006 to make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime.
As the committee prepared to vote Wednesday, Mr. Bush, the American
ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, and other officials cajoled
lawmakers by phone.
Representative Mike Pence, a conservative Republican from Indiana who
has backed the resolution in the past, said Mr. Bush persuaded him to
change his position and vote no. He described the decision as
gut-wrenching, underscoring the emotions stirred in American politics
by a 92-year-old question.
`While this is still the right position,’ Mr. Pence said, referring to
the use of the term genocide, `it is not the right time.’
The House Democratic leadership met Wednesday morning with Turkey’s
ambassador to Washington, Nabi Sensoy, and other Turkish officials,
who argued against moving ahead with a vote. But Representative Steny
H. Hoyer of Maryland, who now holds Mr. Gephardt’s old job as majority
leader, said he and Ms. Pelosi would bring the resolution to the floor
before Congress adjourned this year.
In Turkey, a fresh wave of violence raised the specter of a Turkish
raid into northern Iraq, something the United States is strongly
urging against. A policeman was killed and six others were wounded in
a bomb attack in the Kurdish city of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey
on Wednesday, the state-run Anatolian News Agency reported.
The Associated Press reported from the town of Sirnak that Turkish
warplanes and helicopters were attacking positions along the southern
border with Iraq that are suspected of belonging to Kurdish rebels who
have been fighting Turkish forces for years.
The Turkish government continued to prepare to request Parliament’s
permission for an offensive into Iraq, with Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan suggesting that a vote could be held after the end of
Ramadan. Parliamentary approval would bring Turkey the closest it has
been since 2003 to a full-scale military offensive into Iraq.
Sedat Laciner, from the International Strategic Research Institution,
said that the Turkish public felt betrayed by what was perceived as a
lack of American support for Turkey in its battle against the Kurds.
`American officials could think that Turkish people would ultimately
forget about the lack of U.S. support in this struggle,’ Mr. Laciner
said, using words that could apply equally to views about the Armenian
genocide. `Memories of Turks, however, are not that easy to erase once
it hits sensitive spots.’
Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Sabrina Tavernise
from Baghdad.