ARMENIAN RESOLUTION LIKELY TO FAIL, SAYS HEAD OF US-TURKISH GROUP
Hurriyet
March 8 2010
Turkey
The Armenian "genocide" resolution that was narrowly endorsed by a
U.S. House of Representatives panel last week is very unlikely to
reach a House floor vote, according to the head of a top U.S.-Turkish
business group.
"The resolution has passed the panel vote with the narrowest possible
margin, and has no political credibility [in Congress]," Jim Holmes,
president of the American-Turkish Council, or ATC, said on Sunday in
an interview with the Hurriyet Daily News & Economic Review.
House leaders "will clearly see that they can’t be successful" in a
full House floor vote for the resolution’s endorsement, he said.
The House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee passed the
resolution on a one-vote difference last Thursday despite last-minute
objections from President Barack Obama’s administration.
The 23-22 vote sends the measure to the full House, forcing Democratic
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to decide whether to hold a floor vote on
the measure.
The non-binding resolution calls on Obama to ensure that U.S. policy
formally refers to World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire as "genocide" and to use that term when he delivers his annual
message on the issue in April – something he avoided doing last year.
ATC conference
Holmes, a former U.S. ambassador to Latvia, is visiting Turkey
this week for talks with senior officials ahead of the ATC’s annual
conference on U.S.-Turkish relations in Washington between April 11
and 14. The ATC’s members include top U.S. and Turkish companies
doing business in each other’s countries, and the group seeks to
boost bilateral political and business ties.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been invited to attend an
international nuclear security summit to be hosted by Obama in
Washington on April 12-13, and unless he decides to boycott the
gathering because of the "genocide" resolution controversy, he will
also be expected to take part in some ATC conference activities.
Each year, several top U.S. and Turkish officials attend and speak
at the ATC meetings. This year will be the council’s 29th conference.
"As the resolution is not expected to go any further in the House,
the next benchmark will be how President Obama handles the situation
in his April 24 statement," Holmes said.
April 24 is commemorated every year in the United States as a
remembrance day for deaths of Armenians in 1915. U.S. presidents make
written statements mourning the deaths but they have always avoided
using the word "genocide."
Ankara has warned that any formal "genocide" recognition, by either the
U.S. administration or Congress, would cause a serious deterioration
in U.S.-Turkish ties and effectively kill a reconciliation process
between Turkey and Armenia.
Obama, however, is not expected to utter the word during his April
24 address this year, according to analysts.
‘Lacking strategic vision’
Holmes criticized the "genocide" resolution, saying, "As [Turkish
Foreign Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu hit the nail on the head, this vote
was without strategic vision. Those who were in favor did so purely
from a local political perspective."
He also urged Turks not to blow the matter out of proportion. "Turkey
needs to understand that this is non-binding, and, at the moment,
that it is only at the committee level. While in the United States
it’s only on a local political level, in Turkey it captured the
political attention of the whole nation."
After the committee passed the resolution last week, Ankara recalled
its ambassador to Washington, Namık Tan, for consultations.
Similar "genocide" resolutions passed the same committee in 2000,
2005 and 2007, but not one reached a House floor vote due to extensive
pressure from former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
Vocal opposition to the resolution from the Obama administration
emerged just a few hours before this year’s committee vote.