Author: Nahapetian Samvel

THE U.S. AND TURKEY: HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
By Samantha Power

TIME
Oct 18 2007

A Funeral Procession For Turkish-Armenian Journalist Hrant Dink. Dink
Was Shot In Broad Daylight Outside Of His Newspaper’S Office In
Istanbul.

Kathryn Cook / Prospekt

Ninety-Two Years Ago, The "Young Turk" Regime Ordered The Executions
Of Armenian Civic Leaders And Intellectuals, And Turkish Soldiers And
Militia Forced The Armenian Population To March Into The Desert, Where
More Than A Million Died By Bayonet Or Starvation. That Horror Helped
Galvanize Raphael Lemkin, A Polish Jew, To Invent The Word Genocide,
Which Was Defined Not As The Extermination Of An Entire Group But
Rather As A Systematic Effort To Destroy A Group. Lemkin Wanted The
Term – And The International Legal Convention That Grew Out Of It –
To Encompass Ethnic Cleansing And The Murdering Of A Substantial Part
Of A Group. Otherwise, He Feared, The World Would Wait Until An Entire
Group Had Been Wiped Out Before Taking Any Action.

But this month in Washington these historical truths – about events
carried out on another continent, in another century – are igniting
controversy among politicians as if the harms were unsubstantiated,
local and recent. At stake, of course, is the question of whether
the U.S. House of Representatives should offend Turkey by passing a
resolution condemning the "Armenian genocide" of 1915.

All actors in the debate are playing the roles they have played for
decades. Turkish General Yasar Buyukanit warned that if the House
proceeds with a vote, "our military ties with the U.S. will never
be the same again." Having recognized the genocide while campaigning
for the White House, President George W. Bush nevertheless followed
in the footsteps of his Oval Office predecessors, bemoaning the
euphemistic "tragic suffering" of Armenians and wheeling out men and
women of diplomatic and military rank to argue that the resolution
would harm the indispensable U.S.-Turkish relationship. In Congress,
Representatives in districts populated by Armenians generally support
the measure, while those well cudgeled or coddled by the President
or Pentagon don’t. Official pressure has led many sponsors of the
resolution to withdraw their support.

One feature of the decades-old script is new: the Turkish threats have
greater credibility today than in the past. Mainly this is because
the U.S. war in Iraq has dramatically increased Turkish leverage over
Washington. Some 70% of U.S. air cargo en route to Iraq passes through
Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military
there. While Turkey may react negatively in the short term, recognition
of the genocide is warranted for four reasons. First, the House
resolution tells the truth, and the U.S. would be the 24th country
to officially acknowledge it. In arguing against the resolution,
Bush hasn’t dared dispute the facts. An Administration that has shown
little regard for the truth is openly urging Congress to join it in
avoiding honesty. It is inconceivable that even back in the days when
the U.S. prized West Germany as a bulwark against the Soviet Union,
Washington would have refrained from condemning the Holocaust at
Germany’s behest.

Second, the passage of time is only going to increase the size of
the thorn in the side of what is indeed a valuable relationship with
Turkey. Many a U.S. official (and even the occasional senior Turkish
official) admits in private to wishing the U.S. had recognized the
genocide years ago. Armenian survivors are passing away, but their
descendants have vowed to continue the struggle. The vehemence
of the Armenian diaspora is increasing, not diminishing. Third,
America’s leverage over Turkey is far greater than Turkey’s over
the U.S. The U.S. brought Turkey into NATO, built up its military
and backed its membership in the European Union. Washington granted
most-favored-nation trading status to Turkey, resulting in some $7
billion in annual trade between the two countries and $2 billion
in U.S. investments there. Only Israel and Egypt outrank Turkey
as recipients of U.S. foreign assistance. And fourth, for all the
help Turkey has given the U.S. concerning Iraq, Ankara turned down
Washington’s request to use Turkish bases to launch the Iraq invasion,
and it ignored Washington’s protests by massing 60,000 troops at
the Iraq border this month as a prelude to a widely expected attack
in Iraqi Kurdistan. In other words, while Turkey may invoke the
genocide resolution as grounds for ignoring U.S. wishes, it has a
longer history of snubbing Washington when it wants to.

Back in 1915, when Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey,
protested the atrocities to the Turkish Minister of the Interior,
the Turk was puzzled. "Why are you so interested in the Armenians
anyway?" Mehmed Talaat asked. "We treat the Americans all right."

While it is essential to ensure that Turkey continues to "treat the
Americans all right," a stable, fruitful, 21st century relationship
cannot be built on a lie.

,859 9,1672790,00.html

PATIENCE REQUIRED

Winston-Salem Journal, NC
Oct 18 2007

Winston-Salem Journal

There are good reasons that the Founding Fathers gave control of
foreign diplomacy to the executive branch, not the legislative. The
situation regarding a U.S. House resolution condemning Turkey for
"genocide" against the Armenian people in 1915 is an example of one
of those good reasons.

Diplomacy is a gentle art, one not always deftly performed by the
current administration. In officially branding the deaths of 1.5
million Armenians during World War I as genocide, however, a House
committee has landed at a delicate spot with all of the grace of
an elephant.

This matter requires gentle, patient hands. Turkey is sensitive on
this issue and makes it a crime to openly describe the 1915 events
as genocide. But the country is slowly moving toward openness on
the matter. A commission is in place to study it, and long-sealed
records have been opened, The New York Times reports. Turkish reform
advocates now fear that the House action has excited Turkish passions
to the point where Turkey will retreat from these advances.

The United States should be doing nothing to disturb the gradual
opening of Turkish society. The administration was letting the Turks
handle this on their own. Now, the House committee has injected itself
and confronted all representatives with a difficult dilemma:

They can support the resolution, label as genocide what was a horrible
slaughter of innocent people, and both anger our allies in Turkey
and put our troops in Iraq at risk. Or they can reject that label –
either through a floor vote or by letting the measure die quietly –
and make it appear that the United States is callous to the deaths.

The third and most sensible option, quietly working with Turkey to
open its society to a full discussion of these deaths, has been taken
off the table, at least temporarily.

In the wake of the administration’s appeals to common sense, a good
many House members have withdrawn support for the measure, and it
may never come to a floor vote. That’s the least distasteful option
available right now.

This episode should teach us a lesson: Congress has a role in
overseeing foreign diplomacy, not in conducting it.

ROW OVER PLAN FOR A WELSH MEMORIAL TO ARMENIAN DEAD
by Martin Shipton, Western Mail

ic Wales, United Kingdom
Oct 19 2007

AN INTERNATIONAL row has erupted over a decision to erect a memorial
in Wales to an estimated one and a half million Armenians murdered
by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

A pillar made of pink stone and Welsh slate will be unveiled in the
garden of the Temple of Peace in Cardiff on November 3.

But more than 200 messages protesting against the monument’s erection
have been sent by members of the Turkish community in Wales, elsewhere
in Britain and from Turkey itself.

Stephen Thomas, director of the Welsh Centre for International
Affairs, which is responsible for the memorial garden, this week met
a delegation of Turks opposed to the monument.

In both Armenia and Turkey, the massacres of 1915 have been hugely
emotive ever since they took place. At that time, Turkey was at war
with the Allies and claimed that the Armenian population was supporting
Turkey’s Christian enemies. Soldiers and policemen carried out their
government’s orders to kill as many of the Armenians as they could.

Today Turkey denies that the killings amounted to genocide. But
many international historians now refer to the atrocities as the
first holocaust. Since Britain launched a Holocaust Day in 2001,
representatives from Armenia have been allowed to attend commemorative
ceremonies.

The huge controversy surrounding the killings is seen as a possible
impediment to Turkey’s application to join the EU. Last week the
American House of Representatives passed a motion recognising the
killings as genocide, prompting Turkey to recall its ambassador
from Washington.

Members of the Armenian community in Wales have established links
with the Welsh Centre for International Affairs in recent years,
and a proposal to erect a monument in the centre’s existing peace
garden was accepted.

The monument, designed and crafted by stonemason Ieuan Rees of Betws,
near Ammanford, carries an inscription inscription, in English,
Welsh and Armenian, which reads, "In memory of the victims of the
Armenian genocide".

A spokesman for the Armenian community in Wales said, "There is a
huge amount of evidence that the genocide took place, and we think
it is extremely unfortunate that Turkey still wants to deny what
happened. Our memorial has now become a big issue in the press in
Turkey, where people are getting very upset. We have nothing against
Turkey today, and hope that one day they will come to terms with this
aspect of their and our history."

But Hal Savas, a member of the five-man delegation from the Committee
for the Protection of Turkish Rights which visited Mr Thomas yesterday,
said, "The allegation of genocide is entirely unproven.

The Turkish community will be very upset if the monument is put up."

Mr Thomas said he was happy to meet the delegation and hear their
views, some of which he fully understood.

But he said his organisation would not be able to support the
suggestion to erect a similar memorial to Turks killed by Armenians.

"What happened to the Armenians was of a scale that was different to
what happened to anyone else."

olitics-news/2007/10/19/row-over-plan-for-a-welsh- memorial-to-armenian-dead-91466-19974871/

PELOSI’S WAR
By: Newsmax Staff

NewsMax, FL
Oct 16 2007

If Turkey intensifies its military campaign against Kurdish rebels in
northern Iraq, observers will point a finger of blame at House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi for her support of a resolution accusing the Turks of
"genocide."

Pelosi said Sunday that she’d bring to a vote the resolution condemning
the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey nearly a century ago as
genocide, despite warnings that the action could damage U.S.-Turkey
relations.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the non-binding resolution
last week.

About 1.5 million Armenians were killed, beginning in 1915, as the
Ottoman Empire crumbled. The Turkish government objects to the word
"genocide" and insists that while hundreds of thousands of Armenians
died, they died as a result of war.

Opponents of the resolution, including President Bush, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, argue
that the measure jeopardizes relations with an important ally at a
time when Turkey’s cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan is vital.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul has called the resolution
"unacceptable."

Pelosi’s push for the measure comes as Turkey has reportedly already
launched limited strikes against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, and
has even forged a military alliance with Iran to combat the rebels,
who have carried out guerilla operations inside Turkey and Iran.

Turkey and Iran attacked rebel forces in Iran and Iraq beginning
in August, a rebel commander told Newsmax correspondent Kenneth
R. Timmerman.

Turkish and Iranian artillery have shelled civilian villages inside
Iraq, the commander added.

The military operations make the timing of the "genocide" resolution
especially unfortunate, threatening not only a wider war against the
Kurds, but also a cutoff of American access to the strategic Incirlik
airbase crucial to U.S. operations in Iraq.

When a similar resolution reached the House in October 2000, then
Speaker Dennis Hastert withdraw it minutes before a scheduled vote,
after President Bill Clinton warned it would harm ties with Turkey.

The French National Assembly voted a year ago to make it a crime to
deny that the Armenian killings were genocide. Turkey responded by
suspending military ties with France.

Turkish President Gul blames the Democrats’ support of the genocide
resolution on "petty games of domestic politics."

And Newsmax pundit David Limbaugh writes: "In the unlikely event
that the Democrats’ motive isn’t to undercut our mission in Iraq,
it might as well be – and they ought to be held accountable just as
sternly as if it were.

"To the extent the resolution imperils American troops, it is
egregiously reckless and indefensible at all levels."

pelosi_turkey/2007/10/16/41296.html

7 MORE CONGRESSMEN REFUSE TO SUPPORT RESOLUTION ON SO-CALLED ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
Oct 17 2007

7 more members of US Congress refused to support resolution on the
so-called Armenian genocide, Assembly of Turkish American Associations
told the APA’s US bureau.

Enlightenment among the congressmen in this direction continues at
present. U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee
passed resolution on the so-called Armenian genocide. The House of
Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee voted for the resolution
by 27 votes to 21. Resolution will be brought to vote in the Lower
House of the Congress within a month.

GRANDSTANDING HAS CONSEQUENCES: IT’S AMATEUR HOUR IN CONGRESS.

By Michael Rubin

National Review Online, NY
Oct 15 2007

Last week, a congressional committee passed a resolution condemning
the Armenian genocide. There is no doubt that up to a million Armenians
died during World War I, although historians still debate whether their
deaths constitute deliberate genocide or are collateral casualties
of war.

House Democrats brought the resolution to a vote despite entreaties
from the White House to postpone it. For Congress, though, the
resolution was less about rectifying history than grandstanding.

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Tom Lantos (D., Cal.) called a
vote. It passed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) pooh-poohed
the episode. This was not about Turkey, she explained, but rather
"about the Ottoman Empire." Unclear, though, is why congressional
Democrats felt the urgent need to condemn an entity that hasn’t
existed for 85 years.

Unfortunately, grandstanding has consequences. Turkey recalled its
ambassador; and now the State Department finds itself now devoid of
leverage to prevent a Turkish incursion into Iraq to fight Kurdish
terrorists. Pelosi’s posturing has put U.S. use of the Incirlik Air
Base in Turkey to supply our forces both in Afghanistan and Iraq
in jeopardy.

If only the Armenian Genocide resolution was an isolated event. It’s
amateur hour in Congress. The efforts of Sen. Joseph Biden (D., Del.)
to divide Iraq on ethnic and religious grounds threaten to spark
civil war just as U.S. servicemen make inroads in preventing it.

Biden’s motivation may be to garner media attention. He has
succeeded. The problem, though, his statements get more airtime in
Iran and Iraq, where revolutionary mullahs use his pronouncements
to convince Iraqis that U.S. forces seek to destroy Iraq rather than
rebuild it.

The list goes on. In May 2006, Rep. Jack Murtha (D., Pa.) said that
U.S. Marines executed Iraqis "in cold blood." Overnight, his clip
became an Al-Jazeera favorite. Islamist terrorists used Murtha’s
words to justify their murder of Americans. Now, a court martial
has dismissed murder charges against the servicemen Murtha accused;
Murtha has yet to apologize.

Other congressmen see intelligence briefings as an ala carte menu
for chest-thumbing leaks than part of confidential oversight duties.

Every leak splashed across a New York Times undercuts the war on
terror.

Junkets also have a cost. Basking in the glow of Pelosi’s
headline-garnering visit to Damascus – again in contravention of a
State Department request – Syrian leader Bashar al-Asad upgraded his
support for Hezbollah and his nuclear dealings with North Korea.

The resolution, while important to the Armenian-American community –
perhaps less so to Armenians living in Armenia who worry much more
about economic development – also raises a host of questions about
how Congress picks and chooses which atrocities to weigh in on. While
Condoleezza Rice seeks to bring Beijing on board with Iran sanctions –
a Herculean if not impossible task – will the House Foreign Affairs
Committee condemn Beijing for the millions who perished during the
Cultural Revolution? Their murders – politically motivated and, as
far as the historical record is concerned, far more deliberate and
coordinated – also occurred much more recently. Perhaps the House
Foreign Affairs Committee will also act to bring Iraqi President
Jalal Talabani and Iraqi Kurdistan Region President Masud Barzani
to justice for ordering the disappearance and summary executions of
perhaps 3,000 Kurds during the 1994-1997 Kurdish civil war. This is
not to suggest that such cases should not be pursued. But, the House
Foreign Affairs Committee is not the place to pursue such historical
investigations; universities are.

In an election season, Pelosi, Biden, and Murtha, may have no greater
goal than to garner headlines, but U.S. servicemen fighting terrorists
in Iraq and Afghanistan do. Countering proliferation and fighting
terrorism will dominate diplomacy regardless of who next occupies
the White House. There’s no time for amateur hour. As U.S.

troops continue to sacrifice to defend U.S. national security, it is
unfortunate that headline seeking congressmen seek to make their job
that much harder.

– Michael Rubin, editor of the Middle East Quarterly, is resident
scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

US DEMOCRATS PRESS ON WITH GENOCIDE BILL AMID TURKISH FURY

Peninsula On-line, Qatar
Source: Agencies
Oct 15 2007

Washington ~U Top US Democrats yesterday brushed off Turkish fury and
vowed to press ahead bill condemning the mass killing of Armenians
decades ago as ‘genocide’, insisting that bloodshed today demanded
a righting of past wrongs. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy
Pelosi said possible reprisals affecting Turkey’s cooperation
with the US military were ‘hypothetical’ and would not derail the
resolution. Holding a vote on condemning the massacre, even many years
after the fact, is "about who we are as a country," Pelosi told ABC
television. "Genocide still exists, and we saw it in Rwanda; we see
it now in Darfur," she said on ABC television after the House foreign
affairs committee last week branded the Ottoman Empire’s World War
I massacre of Armenians a genocide. According to Armenians, at least
1.5 million Armenians were killed from 1915 to 1917 under an Ottoman
Empire campaign of deportation and murder. Turkey bitterly disputes
the number of dead and the characterisation of "genocide".

The bill is likely to come up in the full House in November. Although
the resolution is only symbolic, Turkey recalled its ambassador
to Washington last week and has called off visits to the United
States by at least two of its officials. US-Turkish military ties
"will never be the same again" if the House confirms the committee
vote, Turkey’s military chief General Yasar Buyukanit told the daily
Milliyet yesterday.

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, PA
Oct 14 2007

Kurds don’t fear Turks

By Betsy Hiel
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Sunday, October 14, 2007

QANDIL MOUNTAINS, Iraq — Along a winding road near the border with
Turkey, Kurdish shepherds watch over goats, sheep and cows as a
family picnics along a creek.
On the hillside just past a military checkpoint, a face is painted in
blue and black hues on a white concrete slab.

The face is of Abdullah Ocalan and the checkpoint is manned by his
Kurdish Workers’ Party, better known by its Kurdish initials, PKK.

Ocalan has been imprisoned in Turkey since 1999 for leading the PKK’s
two-decade separatist war against the Turks. After months of
escalating cross-border attacks, Turkey is threatening to invade
Iraq’s Kurdish north to destroy PKK guerrillas based there.

It has mobilized on the border in recent weeks since the PKK killed
15 of its soldiers.
PKK fighters, assault rifles slung over their shoulders, snap to
attention as acting PKK leader Murat Karayilan steps into the
cement-block checkpoint. He sounds unconcerned about an invasion.

"Turkey has launched hundreds of raids in the last 25 years,"
Karayilan says. "… Even when the Turkish military stayed for two
months, they couldn’t get the results they wanted and they withdrew."

Yet the threat has provoked a strong reaction from the United States
because it could destabilize the only relatively quiet region of
Iraq, catch U.S. troops in the crossfire and shatter Washington’s
shaky relationship with Turkey, a longtime ally.

For its part, Iraq signed an anti-terrorism agreement with Turkey a
week ago and urges a political resolution to the PKK crisis.

And with Baghdad’s weak central government beset by sectarian
violence, the Kurdish Regional Government — which rules northern
Iraq with near-total autonomy — has offered to deal directly with
Turkey.

Turkey has rejected that and its prime minister, Recep Tayyip
Erdogan, has said he will seek parliamentary approval for an invasion
in coming days.

"A Turkish invasion is definitely possible," says Richard May of the
World Security Institute’s Center for Defense Information and a
former Army officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They’ve
spent millions of dollars to move people and equipment from all over
Turkey."

He sees the buildup as "in line with their previous incursions into
northern Iraq."

More than 30,000 people have died in the fighting between Turkey and
its Kurdish guerrillas. Although the PKK insists it is only defending
the rights of Turkish Kurds, the United States and the European Union
consider it a terrorist group.

Human Rights Watch is critical of Turkey, too, describing its
campaign against the PKK in the 1980s and ’90s as "marked by scores
of ‘disappearances’ and extrajudicial executions" and saying about
3,000 Kurdish villages were "virtually wiped from the map."

Larger fears of separatists

After Saddam Hussein’s fall in 2003, the situation briefly looked
promising.

Iraqi Kurds encouraged Turkish businessmen to invest in their region.
Today, 80 percent of northern Iraq’s construction boom is overseen by
Turkish companies, and annual cross-border trade is estimated at $5
billion.

If the Turks invade, "they will put their own interests at risk,"
says Sarhang Barzainji, an associate professor at Salahideen
University in Erbil, the region’s largest city. "Kurdistan is a big
market for Turkey."

Turkey has a larger fear, though — one shared by anti-U.S. regimes
in the neighborhood.

Iraqi Kurds’ post-Saddam autonomy has inspired Kurdish separatists in
Iran, Syria and Turkey. If Iraqi Kurds gain control of the oil-rich
Kirkuk area, Turkey fears they will split from Iraq and encourage
Turkey’s sizable, restive Kurdish minority to split off, too.

Although many Iraqi Kurds object to their mountains being used as a
PKK base, they still sympathize with Turkish Kurds.

"The Iraqi Kurdish leadership looks at the PKK as a Kurdish faction
and doesn’t want to betray them," says newspaper editor Azad Seddiq,
an Iraqi Kurd. "I think they hope to convince the Americans to make
the PKK a political force and give them … asylum."

That sentiment is echoed by Nawzad Mawlood, Erbil’s governor.

"There are Kurds in Turkey, and they are asking for their rights," he
says. "There should be a political solution."

Asos Hardi, who edits a weekly independent Kurdish newspaper,
believes Turkey is using the PKK as a pretext.

"The PKK is not their main problem. They are afraid of what happens
with the Iraqi Kurds," he says, calling it "a case of Kurdish phobia.
Even if there are no PKK in the mountains, Turkey is still thinking
to invade" northern Iraq.

Tough terrain for a fight

This mountainous region, where the PKK and an Iranian-Turkish
guerrilla group known as PJAK operate, is tough terrain, with peaks
of more than 11,000 feet. An Islamic terrorist group, Ansar Al Islam,
used it as a base to attack Iraqi Kurds before the 2003 U.S.-led
invasion. Kurdish troops routed Ansar only after U.S. airstrikes.

The Iraqi government never had firm control over the region, says
Mawlood. "Even Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons couldn’t get
people out of that area."

Gen. Mam Rostum, a commander of the Iraqi-Kurdish militia, the
peshmerga, agrees. His own fabled fighters might not dislodge the
PKK, he says, "because of the topography, and the PKK is fighting
with guerrilla-warfare tactics."

Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkish politics at the Washington
Institute for Near East Policy, agrees that Iraqi Kurds sympathize
with the PKK’s Kurdish nationalism. But he thinks "they are failing
to take into account how serious the Turks are right now."

‘We cannot give up’

PKK leader Karayilan insists Turkey’s current saber-rattling is
prompted not by his group’s attacks, but by the growing political
power of Iraq’s Kurds.

"We do not believe we can solve the problem through armed struggle,"
he says. "We believe we can move in a political arena."

For the PKK, that means political asylum for its members, the release
of the imprisoned Ocalan, and full cultural and political freedom for
Turkish Kurds.

Karayilan admits Turkey has eased some of its restrictions on Kurds,
allowing them to use their native language and establish private
language schools.

But, he says, "The Turkish state wants two things from us: Give up
and go to Turkish prison, or we will destroy you. As a Kurdish
people, we cannot give up."

———————————————— —————-

U.S.-Turkey relations at all-time low

Turkey’s threat to invade northern Iraq and attack PKK guerrillas
comes when U.S.-Turkish relations are at an all-time low.

It further complicates already-strained U.S. plans in the region,
including efforts to end sectarian violence across Iraq and to
isolate Washington’s regional arch-nemesis, Iran.

A recent Pew opinion poll showed only 9 percent of Turks hold a
positive view of the United States while 28 percent look favorably on
Iran.

"Iran is using the PKK as a public-relations tool to get into Turks’
hearts," says Dr. Soner Cagaptay, an expert on Turkish politics at
the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "They have changed
hundreds of years of deep-rooted (Turkish-Iranian) animosity. It just
shows you how the PKK is a wedge issue."

Turkey, a NATO member and U.S. ally since the Cold War, infuriated
Washington by refusing to allow U.S. forces to cross its border into
northern Iraq during the 2003 invasion. As a result, U.S. troops and
equipment remained at sea on transport ships.

Relations were strained still more last week when the U.S. House
Foreign Affairs Committee voted to classify Turkey’s massacre of
Armenian Christians at the end of World War I as an act of genocide,
despite strong counter-lobbying by Turkish officials and the Bush
administration. The House is set to debate the measure in November.

Turkey has hinted it may retaliate by limiting U.S. air access to its
territory and to the U.S. airbase at Incirlik, a major supply hub for
U.S. forces in Iraq.

An invasion could deliver yet another blow to the U.S. war plan in
Iraq, according to Richard May of the World Security Institute: It
could draw-off some 10,000 Iraqi-Kurdish peshmerga fighters
supporting U.S. forces in Baghdad.

"The Kurdish military are extremely significant. … The Sunnis feel
more comfortable with them than (with) the Shia, and the U.S. forces
like and trust them," says May, a former Army officer who served in
Iraq and Afghanistan.

"If the Turkish military does launch a military incursion into
northern Iraq, these Kurdish soldiers will have their loyalties
pulled."

While the Kurdish peshmerga are not a "linchpin" of the U.S. military
strategy, May says "the loss of one soldier, let alone 10,000, will
have an impact."

Betsy Hiel is a Middle East correspondent for the Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review. She can be reached at [email protected].

ews/s_532537.html

Alalam News Network, Iran
Oct 13 2007

PKK Prepares to Attack Turkey

TURKEY, Oct 13–Kurdish separatist rebels have said they were
crossing back into Turkey to target politicians and police after
Ankara said it was preparing to attack them in northern Iraq.

As regional tensions rose, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan cautioned
that relations between Ankara and Washington were in danger over a US
congressional resolution branding as genocide massacres of Armenians
by Ottoman Turks in 1915.

Washington harbors growing concerns about the possibility of a major
Turkish military incursion to crush Kurdish rebels seeking a homeland
in eastern Turkey.

US officials fear such an action could destabilize a relatively
peaceful area of Iraq.

Ankara recalled its ambassador from the United States for
consultations after the US vote, which was strongly condemned in
predominantly Muslim country, Turkey.

"We don’t need anyone’s advice on northern Iraq and the operation to
be carried out there," Erdogan told a cheering crowd in Istanbul,
after saying that the US "came tens of thousands of kilometers and
attacked Iraq without asking anyone’s permission".

Referring to relations with the US and the Armenian resolution,
Erdogan, using a Turkish idiom usually employed to describe
relations, said: "Where the rope is worn thin, may it break off." He
did not elaborate.

A statement by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) could increase
domestic pressure on Ankara to launch a big offensive that Washington
fears could have ramifications in the region.

The US relies heavily on Turkish bases to supply its war effort in
Iraq.

Erdogan said his government was ready for any world criticism if
Turkey launched an attack against some 3,000 PKK rebels who use north
Iraq as a base to attack Turkish targets.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of more than 30,000 people since
the group launched its armed struggle for an ethnic homeland in
southeast Turkey in 1984.

Some analysts say an offensive became more likely after the US House
of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee approved the bill on
Wednesday. Relations with Washington have hitherto been a strong
restraining force on Turkey.

Turkey denies that genocide was committed but said many died in
inter-ethnic fighting. It remains a sensitive issue, but many Turks
are starting to more openly discuss such past taboos.

The PKK statement moved world oil prices back above $83 a barrel,
traders said. The Kirkuk oil fields of northern Iraq feed export
pipelines running north into Turkey.

After a sharp escalation of attacks by Kurdish militants on Turkish
troops, Erdogan’s government, which faces pressure from the public
and the army to act, has decided to seek approval from parliament
next week for a major operation.

Erdogan said he wanted to secure approval now to avoid spending time
later if and when an operation was warranted.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Erdogan on Thursday to
express her disappointment at the US Armenian bill, which the White
House has tried to stop.

The non-binding Armenian resolution now goes to the floor of the US
House of Representatives, where Democrat leaders say there will be a
vote next month. The resolution was proposed by a politician with
many Armenian-Americans in his district.

Turkey has cautioned that the bill would have negative consequences
for bilateral ties. Potential moves could include blocking US access
to the Incirlik air base, cancelling army contracts, downscaling
bilateral visits, denying air space to US aircraft, and halting joint
exercises.

Iraqi Defence Minister Abdul-Qadir Mohammed Jasim held talks with
Turkey’s ambassador to Baghdad Friday to seek ways to improve
bilateral ties in fighting terrorism.

Erdogan said Turkey respected Iraq’s unity but if it did nothing to
stop the PKK, considered a terrorist organization group by
Washington, Ankara and the EU, then Ankara had to act.

Analysts and diplomats cast doubt on whether PKK rebels would leave
their Iraqi hideouts for the southeast of Turkey where tens of
thousands of heavily armed troops are positioned.

"The guerrillas are not moving to the south (northern Iraq); on the
contrary they are moving to … places in the north," the PKK said in
a statement published on Firat news agency.

The PKK said its fighters planned to carry out attacks against the
ruling AK Party, the main opposition CHP and the police unless
certain conditions were met. It did not elaborate.

Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan adresses his ruling Justice and
Development Party or AKP members in Istanbul.

Seattle Post Intelligencer , WA
Oct 13 2007

Genocide is a word Bush should use
By D. PARVAZ
P-I COLUMNIST

The modern world has a grim view of those who deny the Jewish
Holocaust. They’re vilified, and in Europe, they’re even locked-up. I
don’t agree with the locking up part (free speech is free speech),
but certainly denying one of the most horrific, well-documented
chapters in history is like clinging to antiquated, nonsensical
beliefs — the world is flat, the sun revolves around the Earth …
that sort of thing.

The U.S. is among the nations that have a dim view of those who deny
the Jewish Holocaust. We hold that killing a population based on
ethnicity, race or religion ought to be remembered and mourned. Last
week, Congress was considering a symbolic piece of legislation that
would declare the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians starting in 1915 at
the hands of the Ottoman Empire (today’s Turkey) genocide. And
according to The Associated Press, President Bush "strongly urged
Congress … to veto the legislation," because the Turkish government
has warned us against doing so. There, even mentioning the Armenian
massacres is verboten (it’s an "insult to Turkishness"), and to
report on it, as Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink did, could
get a person killed. In Turkey, acknowledging the Armenian genocide
is a crime, but in Europe, denying the Jewish genocide can get you a
three-year prison sentence. But why is President Bush (like those
before him) trying to pussyfoot around what is already a
well-established fact? He’s not fond of books, but hell, who needs
dusty books and encyclopedias when we have the Internets?

Here it is, Georgie, the definition of "genocide" from
"deliberate and systematic destruction of a group
of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion or race."
It goes on for a bit, but … oh, here we are, "Twentieth-century
events often cited as genocide include the 1915 Armenian massacre by
the Turkish-led Ottoman Empire, the extermination of Jews, Roma
(Gypsies) and other groups by Nazi Germany during World War II, and
the killing of Tutsi by Hutu in Rwanda in the 1990s." Yet Bush didn’t
use the word "genocide" in April, when he issued a presidential
message honoring the murdered Armenians, opting for the softer, "mass
killings" instead.

Last year, I visited the Armenian Vank Cathedral in Esfahan, Iran.
The grounds of the 17th-century church include a museum where
chilling evidence of the Armenian genocide is on display — photos,
maps, documents — it’s all there. So I wonder why Bush would want to
remain silent on the historical record of the massacres, an injustice
Theodore Roosevelt said was "the greatest crime of the war"? Because
it turns out that doing so is inconvenient, something survivors of
the Armenian genocide are sure to understand.

"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in
NATO and in the global war on terror," said Bush of the resolution
while addressing the House Foreign Affairs Committee. See, we need to
send our military cargo through Turkey, so, yeah. Besides, Turkey has
threatened to attack Kurds in Iraq, a weak bullying tactic to repress
an established truth.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that acknowledging that
Armenians suffered their own holocaust "would be very problematic for
everything we are trying to do in the Middle East." Right. Um, what,
aside from privatizing Iraq’s oil supply (such a noble cause), are we
trying to do in the Middle East, exactly?

Ultimately, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the
resolution, which seems only right. This isn’t about demonizing
Turkey — most countries and cultures have the blood of another on
their hands. It’s about reparations that start with recognition of
what was done. It’s also about coming to terms with our actions, not
as individual nations, but as the whole of humanity, as one
consciousness.

More than 1 million Armenians had their property confiscated, were
rounded up and either starved or slaughtered, and we can’t pretend it
didn’t happen. When making his case for annihilating Jews, Adolf
Hitler reportedly said, "Who, after all, speaks today of the
annihilation of the Armenians?" Us. That’s who.

D. Parvaz is an editorial writer and member of the P-I Editorial
Board. E-mail: [email protected].

http://seattlepi.nwsource. com/saturdayspin/335320_parvaz13.html