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US Officials Urge Defeat of Genocide Bill
By DESMOND BUTLER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 10, 2007; 10:42 AM
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration strongly urged Congress on
Wednesday to reject legislation that would declare the World War I-era
killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians a genocide.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates
issued a joint appeal at the White House just hours before the House
Foreign Affairs Committee was to vote on the measure that is opposed
by President Bush _ and which Turkey insists could severely damage
U.S. relations with a NATO ally that has been a major portal for U.S.
military operations in the region.
"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic
for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.
Gates said that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes
through Turkey, as does about a third of the fuel used by the U.S.
military in Iraq.
"Access to air fields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very
much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as
strongly as we believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95
percent of the newly purchased Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
vehicles are flying through Turkey to get to Iraq.
Turkey made a final direct appeal to U.S. lawmakers to reject the
resolution. The U.S. vote comes as Turkey's government was seeking
parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation to chase
separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The
move, opposed by the United States, could open a new war front in the
most stable part of Iraq.
"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a
historic mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser
to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A measure of the potential problem came in a warning the U.S. Embassy
in Ankara issued Tuesday to U.S. citizens in Turkey of "demonstrations
and other manifestations of anti-Americanism throughout Turkey" if the
bill passes the committee and gets to the House floor for a vote, the
embassy statement said.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to U.S. missions in Turkey to
protest the bill. In Ankara, members of the left-wing Workers' Party
chanted anti-American slogans in front of the embassy, the state-run
Anatolia news agency reported. A group of about 200 people staged a
similar protest in front of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, private
NTV television said.
Anatolia quoted a party official as saying that the "genocide claim
was an international, imperialist and a historical lie."
The basic dispute involves the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians
by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely
viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has
been inflated, and insists that those killed were victims of civil war
and unrest.
Armenian-American interest groups also have been rallying supporters
in the large diaspora community to pressure lawmakers to make sure
that a successful committee vote leads to consideration by the full
House.
The bill seemed to have enough support on the committee for passage,
but the majority was slight and some backers said they feared that
Turkish pressure would narrow it. Most Republicans, who are a minority
on the committee, were expected to vote against the resolution.
On Tuesday, Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly
of America, sought to shore up support in letters to the committee's
chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and its ranking Republican
member, Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
"We have a unique opportunity in this Congress, while there are still
survivors of the Armenian genocide living among us, to irrevocably and
unequivocally reaffirm this fact of history," he said.
The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, was
to give the opening invocation to the House's session ahead of the
vote Wednesday.
Erdogan adviser Bagis said the resolution would make it hard for his
government to continue close cooperation with the United States and
resist calls from the public to go after the Kurdish rebels after
deadly attacks on soldiers in recent weeks. Turkey previously has said
it would prefer that the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in
northern Iraq crack down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
The United States reiterated on Tuesday its warnings against an incursion.
___
On the Net:
House Foreign Affairs Committee: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov
(c) 2007 The Associated Press
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/10/10/AR2007101000203.html?sub=AR
By DESMOND BUTLER
The Associated Press
Wednesday, October 10, 2007; 10:42 AM
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration strongly urged Congress on
Wednesday to reject legislation that would declare the World War I-era
killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians a genocide.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates
issued a joint appeal at the White House just hours before the House
Foreign Affairs Committee was to vote on the measure that is opposed
by President Bush _ and which Turkey insists could severely damage
U.S. relations with a NATO ally that has been a major portal for U.S.
military operations in the region.
"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic
for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.
Gates said that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes
through Turkey, as does about a third of the fuel used by the U.S.
military in Iraq.
"Access to air fields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very
much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as
strongly as we believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95
percent of the newly purchased Mine Resistant Ambush Protected
vehicles are flying through Turkey to get to Iraq.
Turkey made a final direct appeal to U.S. lawmakers to reject the
resolution. The U.S. vote comes as Turkey's government was seeking
parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation to chase
separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The
move, opposed by the United States, could open a new war front in the
most stable part of Iraq.
"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a
historic mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser
to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A measure of the potential problem came in a warning the U.S. Embassy
in Ankara issued Tuesday to U.S. citizens in Turkey of "demonstrations
and other manifestations of anti-Americanism throughout Turkey" if the
bill passes the committee and gets to the House floor for a vote, the
embassy statement said.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to U.S. missions in Turkey to
protest the bill. In Ankara, members of the left-wing Workers' Party
chanted anti-American slogans in front of the embassy, the state-run
Anatolia news agency reported. A group of about 200 people staged a
similar protest in front of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, private
NTV television said.
Anatolia quoted a party official as saying that the "genocide claim
was an international, imperialist and a historical lie."
The basic dispute involves the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians
by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely
viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.
Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has
been inflated, and insists that those killed were victims of civil war
and unrest.
Armenian-American interest groups also have been rallying supporters
in the large diaspora community to pressure lawmakers to make sure
that a successful committee vote leads to consideration by the full
House.
The bill seemed to have enough support on the committee for passage,
but the majority was slight and some backers said they feared that
Turkish pressure would narrow it. Most Republicans, who are a minority
on the committee, were expected to vote against the resolution.
On Tuesday, Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly
of America, sought to shore up support in letters to the committee's
chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and its ranking Republican
member, Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
"We have a unique opportunity in this Congress, while there are still
survivors of the Armenian genocide living among us, to irrevocably and
unequivocally reaffirm this fact of history," he said.
The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, was
to give the opening invocation to the House's session ahead of the
vote Wednesday.
Erdogan adviser Bagis said the resolution would make it hard for his
government to continue close cooperation with the United States and
resist calls from the public to go after the Kurdish rebels after
deadly attacks on soldiers in recent weeks. Turkey previously has said
it would prefer that the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in
northern Iraq crack down on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
The United States reiterated on Tuesday its warnings against an incursion.
___
On the Net:
House Foreign Affairs Committee: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov
(c) 2007 The Associated Press
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2007/10/10/AR2007101000203.html?sub=AR