BLUE DOG ‘DISAPPOINTED’ CONTROVERSIAL GENOCIDE RESOLUTION DIDN’T COME TO FLOOR
By Bridget Johnson
The Hill
Dec 23 2010
The 111th Congress adjourned Wednesday without bringing up the latest
incarnation of legislation that would have recognized the 1915 killings
of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
Lobbying groups were on alert over the weekend on reports that Speaker
Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) would bring the resolution to the floor in
the final days of the lame-duck session.
But lawmakers went home for the holidays without passing Rep. Adam
Schiff’s (D-Calif.) resolution, angering Armenian groups and leaving
Turkish groups breathing a sigh of relief.
“[Pelosi’s] decision to not move this legislation forward during her
four years as Speaker represents a failure of Congressional leadership
on human rights and, sadly, a setback to America’s standing in the
struggle to end the cycle of genocide,” Ken Hachikian, chairman of
the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a statement.
The Turkish Coalition of America praised the efforts of the
Congressional Turkish Caucus in keeping the resolution from coming
to the floor.
“Even the sponsors of the resolution realized that legislative
trickery and back room tactics is not how Congress should operate,”
said G. Lincoln McCurdy, TCA president, in a statement.
“We now know that a majority of Congress agrees with President Obama
about the importance of the US-Turkey relationship, and expect this
wisdom to carry over into the 112th Congress so that we can avoid yet
another needless round of bashing our ally Turkey at the expense of
our national interests.”
This Congress wasn’t the first time such a resolution tried to make
it through, but its passage in committee angered Turkey to the point
that it called its ambassador back to Ankara for a time.
Schiff’s resolution, which “calls upon the President to ensure
that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate
understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human
rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States
record relating to the Armenian Genocide,” passed the House Foreign
Affairs Committee on March 4 by a slim margin, 23-22.
A similar resolution was approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee in
2007. Just like this time around, the White House came out against
the resolution, fearing it would damage relations with Turkey, and
Pelosi did not bring the measure to the floor.
Schiff said that he and co-sponsors had launched a “full-press effort”
to get the resolution to the floor in the past weeks.
“We believed that Turkey’s burgeoning alliance with Iran, its support
for Hamas, and its insincere promise to seek reconciliation with modern
Armenia would finally serve to offset Turkey’s shameful campaign of
denial,” Schiff said in a statement.
The Blue Dog Democrat said he was “deeply disappointed” that Congress
recessed without taking up the measure.
“To my many thousands of Armenian-American constituents and friends,
I pledge to you that I will continue to press for recognition of the
Armenian Genocide until the memory of those who perished from 1915-23
is formally and forever preserved in our national consciousness,”
Schiff said.
Obama had promised early in his presidential campaign that he would
call the mass killings genocide if elected. Beginning early in his
term, though, Obama avoided use of the word genocide when asked about
his campaign promise during a press conference in Turkey.
In his Armenian Remembrance Day statements over the past two years,
Obama has avoided use of the word “genocide.”
Schiff’s resolution would have called upon Obama to “accurately
characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000
Armenians as genocide” in his annual message.
“Coming in the wake of President Obama’s string of broken promises to
recognize the Armenian Genocide, Speaker Pelosi’s refusal to schedule
a vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution represents a major breach
of trust with Armenian American voters,” Hachikian said.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent Obama a letter
Monday asking him to prevent the vote, warning that it could damage
ties between the two countries.
“We cannot allow the resolution to hang over Turkish-U.S. ties like
a Sword of Damocles,” said Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who
also urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday to keep the
resolution from passing.
From: A. Papazian
http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/foreign-policy/135001-blue-dog-disappointed-that-controversial-genocide-resolution-didnt-come-to-house-floor