Author: Tambiyan Samvel

The Jerusalem Report
October 15, 2007

ADL SPARS WITH ARMENIANS ON U.S. GENOCIDE BILL

by Eve Price
THE REPORTER; Pg. 4

The tables have been turned on the U.S.-based Anti-Defamation League,
a nearly century-old organization known for wagging its finger at
those accused of anti-Semitism, which is itself now facing charges of
slighting another ethnic minority.

Armenian-Americans in the Boston area are battling the influential
New York-headquartered Jewish group over its reluctance to support a
proposed Congressional resolution that would recognize the World War
I-era expulsion and massacre of more than 1.5 million Armenians in
Turkey as genocide.

The Armenians have been pressing for the legislation for decades, in
the hope of forcing Turkey to reverse its adamant refusal to
acknowledge that any genocide of Armenians took place from 1915-1917.
Now that they finally have a shot at winning its approval, in a vote
expected in Congress this fall, the ADL, a powerful organization on
whose support they have long relied, has stunned and insulted the
Armenians by publicly objecting to the initiative, labeling it
"counterproductive" and asserting that the Armenians should discuss
the issue with Turkey instead.

"Would they convene a conference to debate the Holocaust?" asked
Anthony Barsamian, public relations chairman for the Armenian
Assembly of America, in a comment on the ADL’s position, which he
interpreted as tantamount to asserting that the fact of the massacre
should be up for discussion. "We in the Holocaust and genocide
community need to be firm against any denial," Barsamian told The
Jerusalem Report.

The ADL seems trapped between its roles as an arbiter of Jewish
community relations within the United States, and a representative of
a pro-Israel lobby facing considerable pressure from both Jerusalem
and Turkey to thwart the legislation. Turkey is a strategic ally of
Israel, in an otherwise hostile Middle East.

ADL national director Abraham Foxman has indicated the organization
would be hard put to reverse its stand on the resolution. He told the
Jewish Daily Forward in New York that the Armenians were confronting
a problem of the past, while Jews, and particularly their state,
continue to live under shakier circumstances. "No Armenian lives are
under threat today or in danger," Foxman maintained. "Israel is under
threat and in danger, and a relationship between Israel and Turkey is
vital and critical, so yeah, I have to weigh [that]."

The dispute between the ADL and the Armenians has so far played out
mainly in the greater Boston area, which is home to some 100,000
Armenians, largely descendants of the Turkish massacre’s survivors.
(There are about 1.5 million ethnic Armenians living in the U.S.)
Three Boston-area town councils, Newton, Belmont and Watertown, have
responded to the ADL’s position by dropping the ADL’s flagship school
campaign called "No Place for Hate," a tool used to monitor bigotry
toward Jews and other minority groups. Additional towns, including
Lexington and Needham, have threatened to join the boycott.

The Congressional motion introduced last January by a Jewish
congressman, Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, home to one of
the largest U.S. Armenian communities, calls to "ensure that the
foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate
understanding and sensitivity" to evidence of crimes that include
"the Armenian genocide." The resolution would have little direct
influence over American policy toward Turkey, but the Bush
administration has also opposed it as a potential embarrassment to
its key NATO ally in the Middle East, whose help it often needs in
times of crisis.

President George Bush expressed opposition to the Armenian resolution
after Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayypid Erdogan telephoned him to
complain about the measure coming up for a vote in a Congressional
committee. Bush feels the legislation would be "harmful" to U.S. ties
with Turkey, a White House spokesman said.

The controversy with the Armenians has driven a deep wedge between
the ADL and other Jewish groups, many of whose leaders rushed to the
side of the Armenians. The ADL’s New England director, Andrew Tarsy,
was fired for condemning Foxman’s stand as a "morally indefensible
position" that amounted to fighting Holocaust denial while passing on
denying the genocide of another group. Tarsy has since been
reinstated as part of the national ADL’s efforts to gather more
Jewish support for its position, as well as heal the rift with the
Armenians.

Amid the objections of Jewish leaders in Boston to the ADL’s stand,
many seem equally disturbed by the possible repercussions a boycott
could have for the group’s anti-bigotry program. Many of these
leaders are concerned that the ADL’s position could boomerang against
the Jewish community at some point. "I totally understand, as an
American Jew, that nothing would be worse than someone saying the
Holocaust didn’t happen," said Nancy Kaufman, executive director of
the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, an advocate
of recognizing the genocide against Armenians, in remarks published
in the Boston Globe.

Turkey raised its voice when Foxman, in an unsuccessful bid to
reconcile with the Armenians, issued a statement in August
acknowledging for the first time that the ADL indeed viewed the
killings of Armenians in Turkey some 90 years ago as a crime
"tantamount to genocide." But the ADL’s statement also antagonized
the Armenian community by making clear that the organization
continued to object to the proposed resolution, saying efforts to
have the U.S. Congress decide the Turkish-Armenian dispute would be
"counterproductive."

Ankara has long denied that Turkey slaughtered Armenians,
acknowledging only that many were deported during the World War I era
and saying that those who were expelled were security threats to
their country. Turkey’s president called Israeli President Shimon
Peres to complain about Foxman’s statement, and Israel’s Ambassador
to Ankara, Pinhas Avivi, also took heat from the Turkish Foreign
Ministry. Avivi responded that Israel was "not taking sides" in the
dispute.

Turkey also appealed directly to the ADL, as well as to more than a
dozen other pro-Israel groups, in a meeting between representatives
of these groups and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan at the United
Nations in late September. Erdogan told the groups he expected their
continued support, the Turkish newspaper Zaman reported. Foxman
assured the Turkish minister he would not back down on the ADL’s
objections to the proposed resolution, the newspaper said.

Barsamian, the Armenian-American spokesman, said there would be a
temporary "cooling-off period" pending the ADL’s next decision on the
issue at a meeting scheduled for November. He accused Foxman of
"placating the Turks" and "putting practicality above morality." But,
Barsamian added, "eventually, I think, morality has to win out."

DIE WELT
12. Oktober 2007

Armenien-Resolution löst heftige Reaktionen in der Türkei aus

Lars-Broder Keil

Washington – Ein US-Kongressausschuss hat mit seinem Votum für eine
Resolution zur Anerkennung des Völkermordes an den Armeniern in der
Türkei heftige Kritik ausgelöst. Präsident Abdullah Gül äußerte sich
empört, Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan sprach von einer Gefährdung der
strategischen Partnerschaft. Außerdem wurde der Botschafter in
Washington zurückgerufen. Die Mitglieder des Auswärtigen Ausschusses
des Repräsentantenhauses hatten sich am Mittwoch mit 27 zu 21 Stimmen
über Warnungen von US-Präsident George W. Bush hinweggesetzt.

Gül bezeichnete die Resolution, die die Verfolgung und Vertreibung
von Armeniern im Ersten Weltkrieg als Völkermord einstuft, als "nicht
akzeptabel". Während der Massendeportationen kamen bis zu 1,5
Millionen Armenier ums Leben. Bis heute reagiert Ankara uneinsichtig
auf dieses Thema. So verurteilte ein Strafgericht gestern den Sohn
des ermordeten armenisch-türkischen Journalisten Hrant Dink für den
Abdruck eines Interviews über den Völkermord wegen "Beleidigung des
Türkentums". DW

Agence France Presse
Oct 13 2007

US officials in Turkey to cool genocide row

ANKARA (AFP) – Two top US government officials arrived in Turkey on
Saturday to try to cool a diplomatic row sparked by a US
congressional vote labelling the mass killings of Armenians by the
Ottoman Turks an act of genocide.

"We thought it would be very good idea for two senior officials to
go," said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who along with US
President George W. Bush opposed Wednesday’s resolution in the the
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee.

"We are certainly working to try to minimise any concrete steps the
government might take (such as) restricting the movement of our
troops," Rice said in Moscow. "I am hopeful we can prevent that."

The officials — Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Eric Edelman,
a former US ambassador to Ankara, and Assistant Secretary of State
for European Affairs Dan Fried — were due to have talks later
Saturday with Turkish foreign ministry under secretary, Ertugrul
Apakan, a Turkish official said.

Edelman told reporters as he arrived at Ankara airport that his visit
was to express regret for the resolution being passed. The two had
been accompanying Rice in Moscow and their diversion to Turkey was
unscheduled.

"Mr Edelman knows Turkey well, he is a friend," said the Turkish
official on condition of anonymity, adding: "They wanted to come to
Ankara."

Turkey’s anger over the vote on Wednesday in the US congressional
committee continued to make itself felt with Minister of State Kursad
Tuzmen, an influential member of the Turkish government charged with
external trade, cancelling a visit to a US-Turkish business meeting
in New York.

Tuzmen was the second Turkish official to cancel a planned visit to
the United States after the Turkish Navy commander Admiral Metin Atac
scrapped a trip in the wake of the Armenia vote.

Turkey had warned Washington that passing such a resolution could
seriously damage bilateral ties and after the vote Ankara recalled
its ambassador to the US.

According to Armenians, at least 1.5 million Armenians were killed
from 1915 to 1917 under an Ottoman Empire campaign of deportation and
murder.

Ankara acknowledges that 250,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as
many Turks died in the conflict after Armenians took up arms for
independence but staunchly rejects the tag of genocide.

Turkey’s furious reaction to the congressional vote has fuelled fears
within the Bush administration that it could lose access to a crucial
military base in NATO ally Turkey.

Though the resolution is non-binding, it is likely to come before the
full House in November although bringing a legislative measure to the
floor does not guarantee that it will proceed to a full vote.

Rice said in Moscow that the White House was trying to limit the
damage to US-Turkish relations and would try to stop a vote going to
the House floor although she said this would be "tough."

She added that she had spoken on Friday to Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan following the
vote.

"They were dismayed," she said.

Stifled Serbia slipping out of contention
Saturday 13 October 2007-

Serbia’s UEFA EURO 2008′ qualifying hopes suffered a
major setback as Armenia continued their fine recent
form with a well-earned goalless draw in Yerevan.

Qualification struggle
The result leaves Javier Clemente’s side in fourth
position in Group A with 16 points and three games
left to play, while Armenia are now unbeaten in four
matches having beaten Kazakhstan and Poland and also
drawn with Portugal. Both teams face away trips on
Wednesday, when Serbia travel to Azerbaijan and
Armenia visit Belgium.

Open encounter
The hosts started brighter at the Republican Stadium
and Samvel Melkonyan had the first chance when he
worked his way into the box only to shoot into the
side-netting. At the other end, Serbia’s Marko
Panteliæ had an effort well saved by Roman Berezovsky
and the opportunities continued to come – Melkonyan
broke down the Armenia right and crossed for Artavazd
Karamyan but the midfielder fired wide from close
range.

Chances at both ends
Dejan Stankoviæ was similarly culpable for the
visitors, failing to find the target after latching on
to Panteliæ’s superb through ball, before Zdravko
Kuzmanoviæ was denied by Berezovsky after beating two
players. Serbia goalkeeper Vladimir Stojkoviæ was then
called into action for the first time, inadvertently
blocking a close-range Levon Pachajyan attempt with
his face following good work from Karamyan down the
left.

Late openings
Although Serbia had more reason to press for the win,
it was the locals who had the better openings in the
final ten minutes. Karamyan lifted a shot over the bar
at full stretch from five metres after Sargis
Hovsepyan had supplied a low cross. Substitute Aram
Hakobyan passed up a similarly presentable opportunity
with six minutes left, scuffing Pachajyan’s centre
past the post, so both sides had to settle for a
point.

©uefa.com 1998-2007. All rights reserved.

Lragir, Armenia
Oct 12 2007

HAMMARBERG MET SEFILYAN AND ARMAN BABAJANYAN

Thomas Hammarberg, CoE human rights commissioner, said at the
beginning of the news conference on October 11 he would decline to
answer some questions because they will be covered in the draft
report. He summed up his five-day visit to Armenia and said the
conclusion will be included in the report but first the draft report
will be extended to the Armenian government for clarification on the
existing problems, and the final report on the state of human rights
in Armenia will be ready three months later.

Hammarberg only says there is considerable progress towards
protection of human rights from the Soviet Union. It turned out that
the CoE commissioner is not fond of comparison of countries and
epochs and only states facts. Over his five days stay in Armenia he
visited almost everywhere where there are people and where human
rights can be violated, such as prisons, orphanages, old people’s
homes, homes of people with disabilities, neighborhoods of refugees,
the area of the disaster, the office of the ombudsman, and met with
the leadership of Armenia. Hammarberg found out that the legislation
is complete but there are problems with its application.

Among problems Thomas Hammarberg points to the dependence of the
judicial system, namely the decisions of courts aimed to please the
procuracy even though the powers of the procuracy have been limited.
The CoE human rights commissioner says he raised the issue of
violence in investigation. Hammarberg says there is evidence to
violence, and he told the government it may stain the entire judicial
system.

Thomas Hammarberg expressed concern on the circumstance that the
Armenian legislation still defines insult as a crime and provides for
a criminal sentence. Besides, the human rights commissioner
emphasized the issue of diversification of the media, namely
television, to enable all the classes of the society to express their
opinion. Thomas Hammarberg is going to expand these issues in the
draft report which will be extended to the Armenian government. The
CoE human rights commissioner says he is going to consider separate
worrying cases he observed during the visits to prisons and meetings
with inmates but he declined to provide more detail, preferring
efforts to solve these problems to talks about them. He answered
similarly the question of the reporters about his impression from the
meetings with Arman Babajanyan, Jirair Sefilyan and other persons
considered in Armenia as political prisoners. Hammarberg said he is
going to discuss his individual observations with the government as
soon as the draft report is ready. In answer to the question if the
report is binding for the Armenian government, Hammarberg said
formally it is not but he hopes that in reality it will be.

Azad Azarbaycan TV, Azerbaijan
Oct 12 2007

Azerbaijan says Armenia secretly amassing arms

Russia’s consent to sell weapons to Armenia, a member of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization, at below-market prices will
increase tension in the South Caucasus, the head of the press service
of the Azerbaijani Defence Ministry, Eldar Safarov, has said.

Armenia hides purchased weapons from the UN Weapons Register. At the
same time, Armenia stations the majority of them in Azerbaijani
territories under occupation. The fact that Armenia keeps procured
weapons in secret shows that this country is inclined to armament.
The handover of part of the weapons and the military hardware from
the Georgia-based military bases to Armenia violates the norms of the
Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe [CFE] and this process
aggravates tension in the region, he added.

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Oct 11 2007

Turkish president, Foreign Ministry slam US Armenian genocide
resolution

"BILL ON ARMENIAN ALLEGATIONS -PRESIDENT GUL: "UNFORTUNATELY, SOME
POLITICIANS IN UNITED STATES HAVE ONCE AGAIN SACRIFICED IMPORTANT
MATTERS TO PETTY DOMESTIC POLITICS"

ANKARA (A.A) -"Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States
have once again sacrificed important matters to petty domestic
politics in spite of calls to common sense," Turkish President
Abdullah Gul said late on Wednesday.

President Gul told the A.A after the US House of Representatives
Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the bill regarding Armenian
allegations on the incidents of 1915, "this attitude does not befit
representatives of such a great power like the United States. This
unacceptable decision, like the similar ones in the past, has [no]
validity and respectability for Turkish people."

Government’s view

Meanwhile, the Turkish government said in a statement released by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "our government regrets and condemns
this decision. It is unacceptable that the Turkish nation has been
accused of something that never happened in the past."

"The committee’s approval of this resolution was an irresponsible
move, which at a greatly sensitive time will make relations with a
friend and ally, and a strategic partnership nurtured over
generations, more difficult," it said.

Pointing out that the US House of Representatives Committee on
Foreign Affairs passed the bill describing the Ottoman Empire’s
decision to relocate part of Armenians because of their collaboration
with occupation forces as "genocide", the government said, "the 1915
incidents have still been discussed by historians. A number of renown
historians from different countries assess the Ottoman Empire’s
relocation decision as a warfare security measure taken during the
World War I. It is blatantly obvious that the House Committee on
Foreign Affairs does not have a task or function to rewrite history
by distorting a matter which specifically concerns the common history
of Turks and Armenians. Parliaments are obliged to further improve
relations between peoples and concentrate on the future, instead of
the past."

"Turkey has been advocating for years that the disputed periods in
the history should be dealt by historians, not by legislative organs.
In 2005, we proposed Armenia to set up a joint commission to examine
documents in archives. Armenia has not yet given a positive response
to our offer. We note that Armenia pursued an intentional agenda
about approval of the bill instead of accepting our sincere
proposal," it said.

"Our government regrets and condemns this decision. It is not
possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which was never
committed by the Turkish nation. We hope that the US House of
Representatives will act with common-sense and refrain from taking
further similar steps. Turkey will expend all kinds of efforts to
prevent approval of the bill by the full House of Representatives,"
the government added.

AAA HOPEFUL THAT AFTER H.RES.106 PASSAGE ARMENIAN COMMUNITY OF TURKEY WILL NOT BE PERSECUTED

PanARMENIAN.Net
11.10.2007 15:11 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ "Turkey is panic-stricken. It’s thinking over the
steps it should take to stop promotion of the H. Res. 106 but not to
lose prestige.

Turkey knows its history perfectly. If the resolution passes in the
House and then, under favorable circumstances, in the Senate, Turkey
should think seriously about its future," Armenian Assembly Country
Director for Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, Arpi Vartanian told a news
conference in Yerevan.

She voiced hope that the Turkish government will not make a mistake
and will not persecute the Armenian community of Istanbul.

As to the influence of the adopted resolution on the Armenian-Turkish
relations, in Ms. Vartanian’s opinion, it’s premature to speak of
it yet.

She reminded that the Armenian Genocide Resolution is a non-binding
House Resolution. However, the opinion of the Congress will certainly
have weight in world politics. "The United States is a power defending
democracy and human rights. The H.Res.106 proved it.

But we should not forget that any decision, even a moral one, is also
political," Ms. Vartanian underscored.

BUSH CONDEMNS HOUSE VOTE ON ARMENIAN GENOCIDE
By Patrick Martin

World Socialist Web Site, MI
Oct 12 2007

The Bush administration and the Turkish government have denounced
the action of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which adopted a
resolution Wednesday branding the massacres of Armenians in Turkey
from 1915 to 1923 as genocide and calling on the US government to
officially recognize this as an historical fact.

The resolution was adopted by a 27-21 vote that cut across party
lines-19 Democrats and 8 Republicans voted for the measure, while
13 Republicans and 8 Democrats voted against. The resolution could
come to a vote in the House of Representatives as early as Friday,
and passage there seems assured, since there are 226 co-sponsors,
more than a majority of the House.

The resolution is non-binding and thus has no legal effect on US
government policy. It is also less likely to pass the Senate, where
only 32 of 100 senators have agreed to co-sponsor the bill, far fewer
than the 60 votes required to overcome a filibuster and force a vote.

Despite the purely symbolic character of the resolution, however,
the Bush administration is waging a ferocious campaign to defeat
it. Bush made an appearance in the White House Rose Garden just before
the House committee vote, telling the press, "This resolution is not
the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage
would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in
the global war on terror."

These sentiments were echoed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates and
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who each issued statements
warning that the House action would worsen US relations with Turkey.

Gates pointed out that 70 percent of all air cargo sent to Iraq passes
through Turkey, as well as 30 percent of fuel and nearly all armored
vehicles. He said that US officials in occupied Iraq "believe clearly
that access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would
be very much put at risk if this resolution passes and the Turks
react as strongly as we believe they will."

The Turkish government cut off military cooperation with France last
year after the French parliament adopted legislation to make denial
of the Armenian genocide a criminal offense, on a par with denial of
the Nazi Holocaust.

The US foreign policy establishment was mobilized on a bipartisan basis
to oppose the bill, with all eight living former secretaries of state
signing a joint statement to that effect. This includes Democrats
Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher as well as Republicans
Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig, George Shultz, Lawrence Eagleburger,
James Baker and Colin Powell.

Passage of the resolution by the House committee touched off a storm of
protest in Turkey, with tens of thousands participating in nationalist
demonstrations denouncing the proposed US congressional action. Turkey
withdrew its ambassador, Nabi Sensoy, who had attended the House
committee meeting at the head of a delegation of Turkish legislators.

The government of Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan issued a statement
declaring, "It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a
crime which was never committed by the Turkish nation." It criticized
the House committee, both for allegedly rewriting history and for
interfering in "a matter which specifically concerns the common
history of Turks and Armenians."

Officials in Ankara said that if the full House of Representatives
adopted the resolution, Turkey might reconsider its support for US
military operations in Iraq, including shipments of supplies and the
stationing of US warplanes at the Incirlik air base.

The Turkish foreign ministry issued a statement calling the resolution
"an irresponsible move, which comes at a greatly sensitive time." This
was a reference to the growing tensions along the Iraq-Turkish border
in the wake of a series of clashes between Turkish troops and Kurdish
guerrillas loyal to the separatist PKK (Kurdish Workers Party).

Kurdish fighters killed 13 Turkish soldiers Sunday in Sirnak province,
the worst cross-border incident since the US overthrow of Saddam
Hussein, and the Turkish army has mobilized tanks and troops in a
position to invade northern Iraq. The ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP) decided Tuesday to seek parliamentary authorization for
such an invasion, although it has not yet decided to give the order.

The Bush administration is concerned, not only about a potential
clash between Turkish and Kurdish forces within US-occupied Iraq,
but about a broader destabilizing effect throughout the Middle East
and the Caucasus. This region is the most explosive in the world, with
ongoing conflicts between Russians and Chechens, Russia and Georgia,
Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey and Kurdish rebels, Israel and Syria,
and between Iran and the US occupation forces in Iraq-to say nothing
of the ongoing bloodbath in Iraq itself.

Eastern Turkey, site of both the Armenian genocide 92 years ago and the
Kurdish guerrilla warfare today, is also transected by the Baku-Ceyhan
pipeline, a critical element in the US strategy to obtain access to
the vast oil and gas resources of the Caspian Sea. The pipeline,
built under US auspices as an alternative to the Russian pipeline
system, begins in the Azerbaijan capital and passes through Georgia
and eastern Turkey to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea.

It is, of course, the height of hypocrisy for the US House of
Representatives to pronounce against a 92-year-old genocide while
continuing to fund an imperialist war of aggression which has taken
as many lives as the anti-Armenian pogroms during and after World War
I. According to a recent survey by the British polling organization
ORB, some 1.2 million Iraqis have died violently since the US invasion
in March 2003. Historians have estimated the death toll in the Armenian
massacres as between 500,000 and 1.5 million.

There is little argument that what took place in eastern Turkey between
1915 and 1923 constituted the first case of genocide in the twentieth
century, an event that both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin studied
and drew lessons from. Hitler is said to have remarked, as he ordered
the beginning of mass extermination of Jews in occupied Poland, "Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" Stalin
emulated the methods of the Turkish regime in his mass deportations
of Chechens, Volga Germans and other ethnic groups deemed potentially
disloyal in World War II.

In the wake of Turkey’s defeat in 1915 by Russian armies on
the Caucasus front, one of the early campaigns of World War I,
the Turkish government ordered the mass expulsion of the entire
Armenian population from its ancestral homeland which overlapped
the Russo-Turkish border. The Armenians, largely Christian, were
considered a pro-Russian fifth column and blamed for the Turkish
military setbacks.

The massacres were touched off by the arrest and killing of hundreds of
Armenian nationalists and intellectuals in a government crackdown on
April 24, 1915. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians subsequently died,
some killed by Turkish troops or lynched in pogroms, more dying of
starvation, exposure or heat under conditions of forced marches from
the mountains down into the Mesopotamian desert (what is now Syria
and western Iraq).

Press accounts in the last few days have distorted what took place
beginning in 1915, describing it as an atrocity carried out by the
Ottoman Empire, although it was actually ordered by the Young Turks.

These military officers seized power in 1908, reducing the Ottoman
sultan to figurehead status, and advocated a program of aggressive
Turkish nationalism. They were the political mentors of Kemal Ataturk,
founder of the secular Turkish republic in 1923, and there is a
direct line of continuity to the Kemalist military establishment in
contemporary Turkey.

This political continuity is at the root of the ongoing denial of the
Armenian genocide, a central tenet of Turkish bourgeois nationalism,
embraced particularly by the military brass and the fascist "Grey
Wolves." Acknowledging the Armenian genocide is still a criminal
offense in Turkey, for which the Nobel prize-winning author Orhan
Pamuk was put on trial in Istanbul in 2005. In January of this year,
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was shot to death by a young
Turkish fascist in Istanbul for writing about the mass murders.

The US congressional resolution is not motivated by any principled
concern with these tragic historical events, however. In part,
there is the desire to curry favor with the Armenian-American lobby,
influential in California, home to most Armenian-Americans. All ten
members of the Foreign Affairs Committee from California, Democrats
and Republicans, voted for the resolution.

There is another more sinister factor, expressed in the comments
of Congressman Brad Sherman of California, a Democrat and major
sponsor of the bill. Citing the possibility of US-backed military
intervention in the Darfur region of the Sudan, Sherman said, "If we
hope to stop future genocides we need to admit to those horrific acts
of the past." He dismissed the significance of the Turkish reaction,
saying, "We will get a few angry words out of Ankara for a few days,
and then it’s over."

Another Democrat gave voice to the anti-Muslim bigotry that lies just
below the surface in such discussions, declaring, in response to
warnings of the possible impact on US military operations, "I feel
like I have a Turkish sword over my head."

The prize for cynicism and hypocrisy must go to Senator Hillary
Clinton, who is a co-sponsor of the Senate version of the Armenian
genocide resolution, although President Bill Clinton blocked the last
such measure in the House of Representatives in 2000. Her husband
prevailed on then Speaker Dennis Hastert to shelve a scheduled vote
on the grounds that provoking an anti-American reaction in Turkey
would cause considerable damage to US foreign policy interests.

007/arme-o12.shtml

Financial Tiems

Turkey condemns US ‘genocide’ vote

By Daniel Dombey in Washington and Reuters

Published: October 11 2007 04:46 | Last updated: October 11 2007 04:46

Turkey warned on Thursday that relations with its Nato ally the US
would be harmed by a US House committee’s approval of a resolution
calling the 1915 massacres of Armenians by Ottoman Turks "genocide".

The move came as Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan prepared to ask
parliament, which his party controls, to authorise a military
incursion into northern Iraq to fight Kurdish Turkish rebels using the
region as a base.

"The committee’s approval of this resolution was an irresponsible
move, which at a greatly sensitive time will make relations with a
friend and ally, and a strategic partnership nurtured over
generations, more difficult," the centre-right government said in a
statement.

"Our government regrets and condemns this decision. It is unacceptable
that the Turkish nation has been accused of something that never
happened in history," the government said.

US legislators on Wednesday defied the Bush administration when they
voted to describe the mass killings of Armenians more than eight
decades ago as genocide.

The 27-21 decision by the House of Representatives foreign affairs
committee, which paves the way for a vote in the full House in coming
weeks, came in spite of a warning from George W. Bush, president, and
his top officials that co-operation with Turkey and the fate of US
troops in Iraq could be at stake.

It also comes as the US seeks to convince Turkey not to carry out the
incursion into northern Iraq .

Proponents of the measure, which has vigorous support from the
Armenian-American population, argue that its call for Mr Bush to
"accurately characterise the systematic and deliberate annihilation of
1.5m Armenians as genocide" is essential to putting the historical
record straight.

"The sad truth is that the modern government of Turkey refuses to come
to terms with this genocide," said Representative Christopher Smith of
New Jersey, at an emotionally charged session attended by four
survivors of the mass killings that began in 1915.

"Let us do this and be done with it," said Representative Brad Sherman
of California. "We will get a few angry words out of Ankara for a few
days, and then it’s over."

But only hours before the committee voted Mr Bush warned that passage
of the resolution "would do great harm to our relations with a key
ally in Nato and in the global war on terror".

According to US commanders in Iraq, including Gen David Petraeus,
Robert Gates, defence secretary, said: "Access to airfields and to the
roads and so on in Turkey would be very much put at risk if this
resolution passes and the Turks react as strongly as we believe they
will." He added that about 70 per cent of US air cargo going into Iraq
went through Turkey.

US officials say passage of the resolution by the full House will make
Washington’s bid to convince Turkey not to launch a military incursion
into Iraq much harder. Public outrage against the Kurdish separatist
PKK has flared in the wake of an attack in which 13 soldiers were
killed on Sunday.

Washington’s push for Turkey take a more collaborative approach on
combating PKK has also been complicated by the resignation of Joseph
Ralston, the retired US general who had been seeking to increase
Washington-Ankara co-operation against the militant group.

"For his own reasons he decided that he was going to be moving on,"
said Sean McCormack, state department spokesman, this week. "Any
continuing presence of the PKK or the continuing activities of the PKK
is not because what he did or did not do." He added that he was not
yet aware of a possible replacement for Gen Ralston.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

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