Hayots Ashkharh Daily, Armenia
Oct 12 2007
US uses recognition of Armenian genocide to calm down Turkey
Journalist Vardan Grigoryan reflects in Hayots Ashkharh daily on
whether there is a relation between the US Senate decision as of 24
September to divide Iraq into three administrative-regional units,
the recent Turkish-US confrontation and the inclusion of 106
resolution on the recognition of the Armenian genocide on the agenda
of the US House of Representatives, the newspaper reports.
Grigoryan considers there are three points of view concerning this
issue. The supporters of the first view consider that the US efforts
leading to final formation of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq and
the process of recognition of Armenian genocide are not related, and
that the inclusion of 106 resolution on recognition of Armenian
genocide on the agenda of US House of Representatives is a result of
active cooperation between the Armenian lobby in the US and US
Democrat senators.
Grigoryan says that the second view supported, in particular, by the
director of the Oriental Studies Institute of Armenia’s National
Academy of Sciences, Ruben Safrastyan, is that there are deep
relations between the process with the Kurds in Iraq and recognition
of Armenian genocide, with a reservation that the resolution on
recognition of Armenian genocide was merely an accelerant for US in
implementing a military operation in Iraq.
Grigoryan consider that the third view is based on the question – why
the US Senate decision to divide Iraq as of 24 September and the
closely related issue of referendum on the fate of Kirkuk coincided
with Turkey’s preparations to invade Iraq?
The journalist says that in order to answer all the three questions,
one should note that the official position of the US policy in
winning the fight against terrorism in Iraq is no more seriously
perceived and many in the USA consider that the decent way out of the
US involvement in Iraq is federalization, that is the division of
Iraq, the policy which is favoured by the de-facto existing Kurdish
autonomy in the north of Iraq. Grigoryan reports that the Jewish
lobby in the USA does everything possible to protect the formation of
Kurdish state in Iraq. The journalist believes that the issue of
Armenian genocide in essence is not that important in aggravation of
USA-Turkey relations and proposing resolution 106 for discussion of
US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee is a means to
calm down Turkey.