From: "Katia M. Peltekian" <[email protected]>
Subject: ANKARA: Samantha Power gets a top White House job,
Hürriyet, Turkey
Jan 31 2009
Samantha Power gets a top White House job, backs Armenian claims
U.S. President Barack Obama appointed Samantha Power to a senior
foreign policy job at the White House. Power supports the Armenian
claims regarding the 1915 incidents, a move likely to create concern
in Turkey.
Officials familiar with the decision told the Associated Press that
Obama has tapped Power to be senior director for multilateral affairs
at the National Security Council.
Power has resigned from the Obama campaign after calling Hillary
Clinton a "monster" and made some pro-Israel activists unhappy with
her past criticism of Israel.
Her new post will require close contact and potential travel with the
Secretary of State Clinton.
Power is an expert on human rights and foreign policy. She is
currently a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
She also known as a fierce supporter of the Armenian claims regarding
the 1915 incidents.
The issue of 1915 incidents is highly sensitive for Turkey as well as
Armenia. Around 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks, died in
civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up arms, backed by
Russia, for independence in eastern Anatolia.
However Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5
million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in
1915. The issue remains unsolved as Armenia drags its feet in
accepting Turkey’s proposal of forming a commission to investigate the
claims.
MOST PRO-ARMENIA ADMINISTRATION
The new US administration became the most pro-Armenian claims
administration in the history with the appointment of Power, Hurriyet
daily reported on Saturday.
Obama had pledged to recognize the Armenian claims regarding the 1915
incidents during the election campaign. Vice President Joseph Biden,
Clinton and the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi also support Armenian claims.
Also the new director of CIA, Leon Panetta, also backs the Armenian
claims on this highly controversial issue on which the historians and
experts are divided.
Hurriyet said it is worried that Obama will use the term "genocide" in
his statement on April 24 or a new legislation will be pushed to the
Congress to recognize the Armenian claims, such moves likely to spark
crisis between Ankara and Washington.