RICE URGES US LAWMAKERS TO DROP ‘ARMENIAN GENOCIDE’ RESOLUTION
Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 26 2007
Citing delicate relations between NATO allies Turkey and the United
States, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged US lawmakers
against moving ahead with a nonbinding resolution that would label
as genocide the killings of Anatolian Armenians a century ago. "This
is something that was a horrible event, in the mass killings that
took place, but at the time of the Ottoman Empire. These are not the
Ottomans," Rice said of Turkey’s current leaders while speaking with
members of the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs
on Wednesday. The House proposal has inflamed US tensions with Turkey,
which says the death toll has been inflated and that the Armenians
died during civil unrest, not organized genocide. Support for the
nonbinding resolution gradually deteriorated last week after Turkey
summoned its Washington ambassador back to Ankara and several lawmakers
spoke out against it.
Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, Nabi ªensoy, on Sunday
returned to his office in Washington. Earlier this week, backers of
the resolution admitted that they are not confident the resolution
will pass if it is allowed to go the House floor.
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