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U.S. Republican Hopeful Slams Obama Over Armenian Genocide Recogniti

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  • U.S. Republican Hopeful Slams Obama Over Armenian Genocide Recogniti

    U.S. REPUBLICAN HOPEFUL SLAMS OBAMA OVER ARMENIAN GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
    Emil Danielyan

    http://www.armenialiberty.org/content/article/2207699.html
    01.11.2010

    U.S. -- President Barack Obama speaks at the Moving America Forward
    rally in Philadelphia, 10Oct2010

    A Republican candidate in the U.S. mid-term elections has condemned
    President Barack Obama and his Democratic allies controlling Congress
    for reneging, so far, on their pledges to formally recognize the 1915
    Armenian massacres in Ottoman Turkey as genocide.

    In a last-minute attempt to win over ethnic Armenian voters in her New
    Jersey constituency, Anna Little also faulted the Obama administration
    for lending what she called insufficient support to Armenia in its
    difficult relations with Turkey and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The
    Karabakh Armenians "continue to face the specter of genocide," she
    claimed, pointing to "the ever increasing war rhetoric emanating from
    the Azerbaijani regime."

    "In the elections of 2008, the Democrats swept into power with their
    leaders on record in support of U.S. affirmation of the Armenian
    Genocide," Little said in a statement obtained by RFE/RL's Armenian
    service. "However, they have failed to deliver on their promises in
    every way."

    "The Democratically-controlled Congress and Democratic Administration
    lured voters into a false sense of hope and failed to stand with the
    Armenian-American community on this fundamental promise," she charged.

    US - Congressman Frank Pallone, Undated

    Little is locked in an unexpectedly tight contest with Democratic
    incumbent Frank Pallone, one of the most pro-Armenian members of the
    U.S. House of Representatives who has long championed U.S. recognition
    of the Armenian genocide.

    Pallone is also one of the two co-chairmen of the congressional
    Armenian Caucasus, a bipartisan group of more than 150 legislators.

    His reelection bid was endorsed last week by the Armenian National
    Committee of America (ANCA), one of the two main Armenian-American
    advocacy groups.

    The Armenian community in the United States has been dismayed by
    Obama's failure to honor his repeated campaign pledges to refer to
    the World War One-era massacres as genocide once in office. The U.S.

    president has implicitly attributed his stance to an unprecedented
    rapprochement between Armenia and Turkey that began shortly after he
    took office.

    Vice President Joe Biden, a longtime backer of Armenian-American
    issues, caused more controversy when he implied, in an Internet video
    that surfaced last week, that President Serzh Sarkisian himself asked
    the administration and Congress not to press ahead with genocide
    recognition for now. The U.S. Embassy in Yerevan effectively denied
    Biden's claim over the weekend.

    Obama's Republican election rival, Senator John McCain, refrained
    from calling the mass killings and deportations of Ottoman Armenians
    a genocide during the 2008 presidential race. But he did declare in
    November last year that "genocide was committed against the Armenian
    people" and that "there is ample documentation of that."

    In her statement, Little said that she "will not rest" until a
    draft genocide resolution, which was narrowly approved by the House
    Foreign Affairs Committee in March, is passed by the full chamber,
    if she defeats Pallone. "We cannot afford to break another promise,"
    said the Republican challenger.

    Whether her party shares this view is an open question. The Republicans
    have traditionally opposed Armenian genocide bills, citing Turkey's
    geopolitical importance to the United States.

    Virtually all Republican members of the House panel voted against the
    latest resolution in March. Some of them subsequently reconsidered
    their position amid a sharp deterioration of Turkey's relations
    with Israel.

    The draft resolution has still not reached the House floor despite
    being backed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and more than a hundred other
    lawmakers. One Armenian-American leader told RFE/RL on Monday that
    the Armenian lobby still hopes to push it through the House before
    new legislators take office in January. In any case, he said, the
    mid-term elections "will be more than consequential for us."




    From: A. Papazian
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