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Chicago Tribune (Illinois)
October 11, 2007 Thursday
Panel OKs 'genocide' bill: House committee defies Bush warning
by Bay Fang, Chicago Tribune
Oct. 11--WASHINGTON -- A key House committee defied forceful
opposition from the Bush administration and Turkey on Wednesday and
passed a resolution labeling the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians as
"genocide."
President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates warned that passage of such a resolution would
be "highly destabilizing" to U.S. goals in the Middle East.
"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in
NATO and in the global war on terror," the president told reporters
at the White House, hours before the 27-21 vote in the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), long a supporter of the
measure, is likely to bring it before the full House for a vote
before Congress breaks for the Thanksgiving recess.
"I believe that our government's position is clear," said House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), "that genocide was perpetrated
against the Armenian people approximately 90 years ago during the
course of the First World War ... remembering that and noting that is
important so that we not paper over or allow the Ahmedinejads of the
next decade or decades hereafter to deny the fact." Hoyer was
referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Although the resolution has been introduced in years past, this is
the first year in which it has the support of more than half the
House. Also, Democrats now control both chambers of Congress and they
appear more likely to bring the measure to a vote than the
Republicans were.
Ankara campaigns against bill
Administration officials said the non-binding measure would
jeopardize cooperation by Turkey in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey has
warned of serious consequences if the resolution is approved and has
launched a vigorous campaign against it, including full-page ads in
newspapers and buttonholing lawmakers.
Appearing with Rice just after a weekly briefing with military
leaders in Iraq, Gates said 70 percent of all air cargo going into
Iraq and a third of the fuel consumed there goes through Turkey.
"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be
very much put at risk if this resolution passes," he said, "and the
Turks react as strongly as we believe they will."
The measure comes at a sensitive time for U.S.-Turkey relations.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who telephoned Bush last
week about the Armenian resolution, said his government would submit
a motion to Turkey's parliament on Thursday to authorize a
cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to strike a Kurdish rebel
group known as the PKK, after 15 Turkish soldiers were killed in
attacks in recent days. The Turks are scheduled to hold the next
ministerial-level conference of Iraq's neighbors in Istanbul next
month.
"It will be hard to do much of anything collaborative with the Turks
for a while," a senior administration official said.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, predicted mass
demonstrations in Turkey, especially at the U.S. military base in the
south.
"Anti-Americanism in Turkey is already at an all-time high, and
people think the U.S. is protecting the PKK by not doing anything
against them, so this rubs salt on an open wound," Cagaptay said.
"They will not just see it as a House resolution but as the U.S.
government making a judgment on Turkish history."
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara is likely to prepare for a backlash by
increasing security around the embassy and other American properties
in Turkey.
Numbers, beliefs conflict
The Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed by the
Ottomans in a campaign of genocide during World War I, but Turkish
officials say that widespread strife and forced relocations during
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire caused the deaths of 250,000 to
500,000 Armenians and that an equal number of Turks died at the time.
The House resolution says the killings should be fully acknowledged
in U.S. policy toward Turkey. "This is a historic day and a
critically important step forward on this issue," said Bryan Ardouny,
executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America.
One senior administration official likened the resolution's impact to
the amendment on federalism in Iraq sponsored by Sens. Joseph Biden
(D-Del.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), which passed last month.
"After it passed, every Iraqi political party except the Kurds made
statements denouncing it, and it set back the federalism cause by a
year," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to reporters. "Sometimes Congress is so focused
on near-term political gains that it loses sight of the repercussions
of its actions on long-term foreign policy goals."
October 11, 2007 Thursday
Panel OKs 'genocide' bill: House committee defies Bush warning
by Bay Fang, Chicago Tribune
Oct. 11--WASHINGTON -- A key House committee defied forceful
opposition from the Bush administration and Turkey on Wednesday and
passed a resolution labeling the Ottoman-era killings of Armenians as
"genocide."
President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense
Secretary Robert Gates warned that passage of such a resolution would
be "highly destabilizing" to U.S. goals in the Middle East.
"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in
NATO and in the global war on terror," the president told reporters
at the White House, hours before the 27-21 vote in the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), long a supporter of the
measure, is likely to bring it before the full House for a vote
before Congress breaks for the Thanksgiving recess.
"I believe that our government's position is clear," said House
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), "that genocide was perpetrated
against the Armenian people approximately 90 years ago during the
course of the First World War ... remembering that and noting that is
important so that we not paper over or allow the Ahmedinejads of the
next decade or decades hereafter to deny the fact." Hoyer was
referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Although the resolution has been introduced in years past, this is
the first year in which it has the support of more than half the
House. Also, Democrats now control both chambers of Congress and they
appear more likely to bring the measure to a vote than the
Republicans were.
Ankara campaigns against bill
Administration officials said the non-binding measure would
jeopardize cooperation by Turkey in Iraq and Afghanistan. Turkey has
warned of serious consequences if the resolution is approved and has
launched a vigorous campaign against it, including full-page ads in
newspapers and buttonholing lawmakers.
Appearing with Rice just after a weekly briefing with military
leaders in Iraq, Gates said 70 percent of all air cargo going into
Iraq and a third of the fuel consumed there goes through Turkey.
"Access to airfields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would be
very much put at risk if this resolution passes," he said, "and the
Turks react as strongly as we believe they will."
The measure comes at a sensitive time for U.S.-Turkey relations.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who telephoned Bush last
week about the Armenian resolution, said his government would submit
a motion to Turkey's parliament on Thursday to authorize a
cross-border incursion into northern Iraq to strike a Kurdish rebel
group known as the PKK, after 15 Turkish soldiers were killed in
attacks in recent days. The Turks are scheduled to hold the next
ministerial-level conference of Iraq's neighbors in Istanbul next
month.
"It will be hard to do much of anything collaborative with the Turks
for a while," a senior administration official said.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy, predicted mass
demonstrations in Turkey, especially at the U.S. military base in the
south.
"Anti-Americanism in Turkey is already at an all-time high, and
people think the U.S. is protecting the PKK by not doing anything
against them, so this rubs salt on an open wound," Cagaptay said.
"They will not just see it as a House resolution but as the U.S.
government making a judgment on Turkish history."
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara is likely to prepare for a backlash by
increasing security around the embassy and other American properties
in Turkey.
Numbers, beliefs conflict
The Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed by the
Ottomans in a campaign of genocide during World War I, but Turkish
officials say that widespread strife and forced relocations during
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire caused the deaths of 250,000 to
500,000 Armenians and that an equal number of Turks died at the time.
The House resolution says the killings should be fully acknowledged
in U.S. policy toward Turkey. "This is a historic day and a
critically important step forward on this issue," said Bryan Ardouny,
executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America.
One senior administration official likened the resolution's impact to
the amendment on federalism in Iraq sponsored by Sens. Joseph Biden
(D-Del.) and Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), which passed last month.
"After it passed, every Iraqi political party except the Kurds made
statements denouncing it, and it set back the federalism cause by a
year," said the official, who requested anonymity because he was not
authorized to speak to reporters. "Sometimes Congress is so focused
on near-term political gains that it loses sight of the repercussions
of its actions on long-term foreign policy goals."