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US Congress panel ‘Armenian genocide’ vote wrong

Baroness Sarah Ludford Ingiliz Liberal Party Avrupa Milletvekili – soyledikleri cok guzelkendisine tesekkur edelim assagidaki yazisi icin (emaili var)

Haluk
Turkish Forum, Ingiltere

YONETIM KURULU ADINA

—–Original Message——————————————————————————————
From: Sarah Ludford MEP (Lon) <Office@sarahludfordmep.org.uk>
To: grassroots@turkishnews.com; turkish-forum-advisory-board@googlegroups.com

Sent: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 10:02
Subject: US Congress panel ‘Armenian genocide’ vote wrong

NEWS RELEASE

BARONESS SARAH LUDFORD

MEP Liberal Democrat MEP for London

www.sarahludfordmep.org.uk

Date: Monday 8 March 2010

Contact:

Sarah Ludford or Sonia Dunlop +44 (0)20 7288 2526 or Mobile +44 (0)7970 795 278

Email: office@sarahludfordmep.org.uk

US Congress panel ‘Armenian genocide’ vote wrong

London Liberal Democrat MEP Sarah Ludford, the party’s European justice & human rights spokeswoman and vice-chair of the European Parliament delegation to the United States, has strongly criticised the vote by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives to label the treatment of Armenians in 1915 as ‘genocide’.

She said: “Both the US and the EU have backed the welcome moves to set up a joint commission of historians from Turkey and Armenia to try and establish the truth about the tragic and large-scale wartime deaths almost a century ago. It makes no sense for outsiders in Europe or America to wade in with hobnail boots and prejudge the outcome of that sensitive exercise.”

“That there were deportations which entailed atrocities and deaths of many Christian Armenians is not in doubt. But the precise actions, the 1915 war context, and the extent of reciprocal killings of Muslim Turks all need to be better understood.”

“The term genocide has a very narrow meaning under the 1948 Convention: the deliberate intent to destroy an ethnic, national, racial or religious group. It is deeply irresponsible to use that term without establishing the full facts about the Armenian case and to leave the suspicion that politics or even religious prejudice is a motive.

That is why as an MEP I have always refused to define the events of 1915 and preferred to await the conclusion of honest and objective research. That is not a cop-out, it is acting with integrity.”

“The Congressional vote was won by the narrowest of margins, 23 to 22. I hope that in those circumstances wisdom will prevail, with Congressmen heeding the call of President Obama and Secretary Clinton not to progress this to a vote of the full House.”

END

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The Right Honourable Sarah, Lady Ludford MEP

Member of the European Parliament for London
Incumbent
Assumed office 1999

Born	14 March 1951 (1951-03-14) (age 58)
Nationality	British
Political party	Liberal Democrat
Spouse(s)	Steve Hitchins
Alma mater	London School of Economics

Sarah Ann Ludford, Baroness Ludford (born 14 March 1951) is a Liberal Democrat Member of the European Parliament and a nonvoting member of the House of Lords (where her voting membership is suspended during her MEP tenure).

She was made a Life peer as Baroness Ludford, of Clerkenwell in the London Borough of Islington in 1997.

A former councillor in the London Borough of Islington, and married to the former leader of the council, Steve Hitchins, she was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in the European Parliament election, 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and in 2009 representing London.

Because of the change in the rules of the European Parliament, she is not entitled to sit in the Lords due to her re-election to the European Parliament in the 2009 election. In October 2008, Parliament’s rules were changed so that if a member of the Lords were elected as an MEP, their right to sit and vote in the Lords would be suspended. This satisfies the new European Parliament rules and hence, Lady Ludford, the only person to whom this applies, is not allowed to vote in the Lords while an MEP.

She is a member of the Liberal Democrat groups Friends of Israel and Friends of Turkey.

[edit] External links

Sarah Ludford MEP official site
Sarah Ludford profile at the European Parliament
Sarah Ludford profile at the site of the Liberal Democrats

Ludford: Senatonun Kararı ‘Korkunç’

Avrupa Parlamentosu Üyesi İngiliz Milletvekili Sarah Ludford, ABD Temsilciler Meclisi Dış İlişkiler Komisyonu’nun Aldığı Kararı Eleştirdi. Kararın Yanlış Olduğunu Söyleyen Sarah Ludford, “Türkiye Ve Ermenistan Bu Olayın Araştırılması Için Bir Tarih Komisyonunun Kurulması Konusunda Anlaşmışken, Soykırım Iddialarını Yargılamak Ne ABD Ne De AB’nin Işi Olmalı.” Dedi.

1915 Yıllarında Büyük Toplulukların Göçe Zorlandığı Bir Sırada Acı Ölümlerin Yaşandığını Belirten Ludford, “Bu Sırada Çok Sayıda Hıristiyan Ermeni’nin Öldüğünden Hiç Kimsenin Şüphesi Yok. Ancak 1915 Olayları Daha İyi Analiz Edildiğinde Müslüman Türklerin Öldürülmesi Olayının Da Anlaşılması Gerekiyor.” Ifadesini Kullandı.

Soykırım Sözünün 1948 Konvansiyonu’na Göre Çok Net Bir Anlamı Olduğunu Sözlerine Ekleyen Ludford, Bir Milleti, Irkı Ya Da Dini Bir Grubu Kasten Ve Sistematik Bir Şekilde Ortadan Kaldırma Durumunda Ancak Soykırımdan Bahsedilebileceğini Söyledi. 1915 Yılındaki Ermeni Iddialarını Araştırmadan Ve Konuyu Bilmeden Bu Sözcüğü Kullanmanın Tam Bir ‘Sorumsuzluk’ Olduğunu Vurgulayan Ludford, “Bir Milletvekili Olarak Ben Bu Yüzden Her Zaman 1915 Olaylarını ‘Soykırım’ Olarak Adlandırmaktan Kaçındım Ve Bu Konudaki Bağımsız Araştırmaların Sonucunu Bekledim. Bu Sorumluluktan Kaçma Ya Da Bir Uydurma Değil. Bu Dürüst Olmak Demektir.” Diye Konuştu.

Dış İlişkiler Komisyonu’nun Bir Oy Farkla Bu Kararı Aldığını Hatırlatan Ludford, Sağ Duyunun Galip Gelmesini, Kongre Üyelerinin ABD Başkanı Barack Obama Ve Dışişleri Bakanı Hillary Clinton Ile Birlikte Bu Tasarıyı Temsilciler Meclisi’ne Gelmesini Engellemeyi Umduğunu Dile Getirdi.

March 8, 2010

Mikhail Gorbachov: Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be part of Azerbaijan

11:00 / 03/06/2010 The first and last president of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachov admits that Nagorno-Karabakh was in a lamentable
state in 1980s, but the authorities did not pay any attention to the
region. `It was even impossible to get in touch with, say, Yerevan,
and Nagorno-Karabakh was not financed,’ Gorbachov said in his
interview with RFE/RL.

Speaking of the ways of settling the conflict, the former Soviet
leader pointed out that nobody wins in such conflicts. `An agreement
should have been reached, and we would have resolved the problem
somehow in late 1980,’ Gorbachov said.

`For example, I proposed republic status for Nagorno-Karabakh. The
then Azeri authorities ‘ I think Vezirov ` were on the point of
agreeing, but the plan failed. May be the problem could be resolved at
that time, but we cannot imagine Nagorno-Karabakh as part of
Azerbaijan now,’ Gorbachov said.

`We can hear new calls for war now. But a new war must not be allowed
in Nagorno-Karabakh. Negotiations are the only way out. War must be
ruled out; otherwise, great powers will be involved,’ he said.

`I think measures should have been taken to grant status to
Nagorno-Karabakh. Economic assistance should have been rendered as
well. People should have been enabled to keep touch with Yerevan. We
allocated funds for Karabakh later, I do not know how they were spent.
At that time they told me I loved Armenians and did not love
Azerbaijanis. Nonsense!’ said Gorbachov.

On the occasion of the 28th anniversary of perestroika (the policy of
reconstructing the economy, etc., of the former Soviet Union under the
leadership of Mikhail Gorbachov), the Gorbachov Fund released a
report. According to the authors, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is
among the causes of the USSR’s collapse. The authors points out that
the problem was the result of erroneous policy at the dawn of the
Soviet state.

T.P.

March 8, 2010
Israel Lobby Gets Congress to Stick It to Turkey

The Israelis are trying to teach the Turks a lesson…….This was simply an act of punishment for Turkey for not being nice to Israel and for courting Iran.

MJ Rosenberg
Senior Fellow Media Matters Action Network
Posted: March 5, 2010 11:42 AM

That battle is now being carried to Washington. The Israelis are trying to teach the Turks a lesson. If the Armenian resolution passes both houses and goes into effect, it will not be out of some newfound compassion for the victims of the Armenian genocide and their descendants, but to send a message to Turkey: if you mess with Israel, its lobby will make Turkey pay a price in Washington.

==========================================================

MJ Rosenberg

M.J. Rosenberg is the former Director of Policy Analysis for Israel Policy Forum (IPF).

In this position, MJ heads IPF’s Washington, D.C. office and writes IPF Friday, a weekly opinion column on the Arab-Israeli conflict which is widely circulated throughout the United States and the Middle East. In addition, MJ has published numerous op-eds, in the national and Jewish press.

MJ spent eighteen years within the United States government, fourteen on Capitol Hill as an aide to Representatives Jonathan Bingham (D-New York), Edward Feighan (D-Ohio) and Nita Lowey (D-New York) and Senator Carl Levin (D-Michigan). Immediately prior to coming to IPF, he was a political appointee to USAID, where he served as Chief of Staff for Thomas Dine, the head of the Eastern Europe/NIS Bureau of USAID.

From 1982 to 1986, MJ was editor of Near East Report, the American Israel Public Affair Committee’s (AIPAC’s) biweekly publication on Middle East Policy.

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Israel Lobby Gets Congress to Stick It to Turkey

Yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Armenian genocide resolution. That is the bill, kicking around for years, that recognizes the Armenian genocide as precisely that – genocide. The Turkish government has always strongly opposed the resolution, arguing – unconvincingly, in my opinion – that the slaughter of the Armenians occurred in the context of war and was not an attempt at their intentional eradication.
I never understood why the Turks care so much. The current democratic Turkish Republic was not even in existence during the Armenian slaughter. It is the successor state to the Ottoman Empire under which the killing took place. The current Turkish government is no more responsible for the Armenian genocide than the current German government is responsible for the Holocaust.
Nonetheless, the Turks vehemently oppose using the term “genocide” to describe the events of 1915.
And successive American administrations have deferred to the Turks by opposing Congressional bills “commemorating” the “Armenian genocide.”
It is no different this year. The Obama administration lobbied against the resolution because it believed that enacting it would disrupt our relations with Turkey, a fellow NATO member and our largest ally in the Middle East. It also argued that passing the bill now would disrupt negotiations now underway between Turkey and Armenia.
It passed anyway and the Turks immediately called its ambassador home.
But here is where it gets really interesting. The following comes from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the Associated Press of the Jewish world. JTA writes:
In the past, the pro-Israel community [i.e. the Israel lobby] , has lobbied hard against previous attempts to pass similar resolutions, citing warnings from Turkish officials that it could harm the
alliance not only with the United States but with Israel — although Israel has always tried to avoid mentioning the World War I-era genocide.
In the last year or so, however, officials of American pro-Israel groups have said that while they will not support new resolutions, they will no longer oppose them, citing Turkey’s heightened rhetorical attacks on Israel and a flourishing of outright anti-Semitism the government has done little to stem.
That has lifted the fetters for lawmakers like Berman (Chairman Howard Berman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee) , who had been loath to abet in the denial of a genocide; Berman and a host of other members of the House’s unofficial Jewish caucus have signed on as co-sponsors.
Get that. The lobby has always opposed deeming the Armenian slaughter a genocide largely because Turkey has (or had) good relations with Israel. And the lobby, and its Congressional acolytes, did not want to harm those relations.
But, since the Gaza war, Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated. The Turks, like pretty much every other nation on the planet, were appalled by the Israeli onslaught against the Gazans. And said so.
Ever since, the Netanyahu government has made a point to stick it to the Turks. Most famously, Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon seated the Turkish ambassador in a kindergarten chair during a meeting, and “forgot” to put a Turkish flag on the table alongside the Israeli flag. He then called the Israeli photographers in and said to them in Hebrew – so the Turkish ambassador wouldn’t understand, “The important thing is that they see he’s sitting lower and we’re up high and that there’s only one flag, and you see we’re not smiling.”
News of that episode so enraged the Turks and humiliated the Israelis that Ayalon had to apologize three times, in progressively more abject terms, or face a rupture in Israeli-Turkish relations.
That battle is now being carried to Washington. The Israelis are trying to teach the Turks a lesson. If the Armenian resolution passes both houses and goes into effect, it will not be out of some newfound compassion for the victims of the Armenian genocide and their descendants, but to send a message to Turkey: if you mess with Israel, its lobby will make Turkey pay a price in Washington.
And, just maybe, the United States will pay it too.
Follow MJ Rosenberg on Twitter: www.twitter.com/mjmediamatters

Huffington Post

686 words posted in Zionist provocation, Af-Pak war, , Israel • Leave a comment

COMMENTS
Dnlmsstch I’m a Fan of Dnlmsstch 17 fans permalink
The reason that the Turks have a problem admiting the genocide is becasue Mustafa Kamal and other founders of the Modern Secular Turkish Republic were involved – if not directly at least peripheraly – to admit that is like admiting that George Washington and other founder were complicit with the genocide of Native Americans.
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 04:46 PM on 3/05/2010
– lightningbolt I’m a Fan of lightningbolt 142 fans permalink
As usual, everything will be blamed on Israel. The Jewish people are the eternal scapegoat.
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 04:36 PM on 3/05/2010
– joeinvt I’m a Fan of joeinvt 13 fans permalink
Are you denying or defending the Armenian genocide? And are you opposed to lobbying generally or simply effective lobbying done by Jews?
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 03:48 PM on 3/05/2010
– mok10501 permalink
This comment is pending approval and won’t be displayed until it is approved.
Henry Kissinger was lobbying for the Turks, isn’t he the biggest Jew in the nation? What happened, didn’t the Turks paid enough? Oo, I see, that penny pincher doesn’t count ha?.
Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 05:10 PM on 3/05/2010
– lbsaltzman I’m a Fan of lbsaltzman 92 fans permalink
Excellent post. I am reminded of the shifting alliances in the novel 1984. Ironically Israel had better be careful or one day it may be that Congress will no longer be afraid to discuss the truth about Israel.
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 03:31 PM on 3/05/2010
– Annoula I’m a Fan of Annoula 21 fans permalink “That battle is now being carried to Washington. The Israelis are trying to teach the Turks a lesson. If the Armenian resolution passes both houses and goes into effect, it will not be out of some newfound compassion for the victims of the Armenian genocide and their descendants, but to send a message to Turkey: if you mess with Israel, its lobby will make Turkey pay a price in Washington. And, just maybe, the United States will pay it too. ”
Precisely that’s the core of the issue right now. That the US reserves the right to label war atrocities and crimes against humanity depending on how it fits its agenda and/or Israel’s. For as long as the relations between Israel and Turkey continued to be good, that resolution would never had made it out of Comittee. This was simply an act of punishment for Turkey for not being nice to Israel and for courting Iran. In my book, that’s called HYPOCRISY. The sad truth is the US has become a tool of the Likud party. And the attacks on 9/11 were a response to that. How much more is the US willing to sacrifice for the sake of the Zionists zealots?
Reply Favorite Flag as abusive Posted 03:06 PM on 3/05/2010

March 8, 2010
Turkey threatens ‘serious consequences’
after US vote on Armenian genocide

Strategic partnership at risk despite Barack Obama’s attempts to stop Congress resolution
- Robert Tait in Istanbul and Ewen MacAskill in Washington
- guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 March 2010 21.34 GMT
Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu says describing the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide is an insult to Turkey’s ‘honour’. Photograph: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty Images

Turkey has threatened to downgrade its strategic relationship with the US amid nationalist anger over a vote in the US Congress that defined the mass killings of Armenians during the first world war as genocide.

Barack Obama‘s administration, which regards Turkey as an important ally, was today desperately seeking to defuse the row. It expressed its frustration with the House of Representatives’ foreign affairs committee, which voted 23-22 yesterday in favour of a resolution labelling the 1915 massacre of up to 1.5 million Armenians a “genocide”.

A furious Turkey may now deny the US access to the Incirlik air base, a staging post for Iraq, as it did at the time of the 2003 invasion, or withdraw its sizeable troop contribution to the coalition forces in Afghanistan.

On the diplomatic front, the US needs the support of Turkey, which has a seat on the UN security council, in the push for sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme. Turkey is also helpful to the US on a host of other diplomatic issues in the Middle East and central Asia.

The White House and state department began work today to try to prevent the controversial issue making its way to the floor of the house for a full vote.

In Turkey, Suat Kiniklioglu, the influential deputy chairman for external affairs in the ruling Justice and Development party (AKP), warned of “major consequences” if the resolution was accepted by the full House of Representatives.

“If they choose to bring this to the floor they will have to face the fact that the consequences would be serious – the relationship would be downgraded at every level,” he said. “Everything from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iraq to the Middle East process would be affected.

“There would be major disruption to the relationship between Turkey and the US.”

His comments reflected deep-seated anger throughout Turkish society, as well as an official determination to press the Obama administration into making sure the resolution progresses no further.

Turkey withdrew its ambassador to Washington for urgent “consultations” immediately after the vote, which was screened live on nationwide television.

Its foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, appeared to blame the outcome on the White House, and said that describing the 1915 Armenian killings as genocide was an insult to Turkey’s “honour”. France and Canada have both classified the killings as genocide, unlike Britain.

“The picture shows that the US administration did not put enough weight behind the issue,” Davutoglu told a news conference. “We are seriously disturbed by the result.”

The mass killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians has long been a highly sensitive subject in Turkey. While the issue is now more openly debated than in the past, Turkish officials insist that to describe it as genocide equates it with the Nazi Holocaust.

Turkey admits that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died, but disputes suggestions that it was part of a programme to eliminate the population, insisting instead that many died of disease. It has also suggested that the numbers have been inflated, and pointed out that many Turks died at the hands of Armenians.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, who is on a visit to South America, stressed that both she and Obama opposed the house vote and wanted to see it go no further. She said any action by Congress was not appropriate. “We do not believe that the full Congress will, or should, act upon that resolution, and we have made that clear to all the parties involved.”

Asked how she squared her support for the Armenian campaign on the election campaign trail with her new position, she said circumstances had changed, with the Turkish and Armenian governments engaged in talks on normalisation and a historical commission established to look at past events.

“I do not think it is for any other country to determine how two countries resolve matters between them, to the extent that actions that the United States might take could disrupt this process,” she said.

The chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, Ken Hachikian, who led the lobbying campaign to get the house committee to back the resolution, today dismissed the Turkish threat of reprisals. “This is part of a Turkish pattern or huffing and puffing. With the other 20 countries that have passed similar resolutions, they made similar threats and then it was business as usual,” he said.

Hachikian, who is based in Washington, said he hoped the vote would go to the full house before 24 April, Armenian genocide commemoration day. He accused Obama and Clinton of hypocrisy in trying to block a vote, saying they had supported the Armenian campaign during the presidential election.

He said the Turkish government had spent $1m during the past few months lobbying members of Congress. His committee had spent only $75,000, which included adverts in media outlets read by members of Congress and their staff.

Although Hachikian claimed to have the votes needed, and 215 members of the 435-member house have publicly backed the resolution, the chances of a full vote are small, given the opposition from the White House and state department.

The vote came as attempts at rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia – which have no diplomatic ties – had already run aground. A protocol signed in Geneva last October promising to restore relations has yet to be ratified by the parliament of either country.

Both Turkish and Armenian analysts voiced fears that the protocols may now be doomed.
March 7, 2010
GRIM HISTORY OF ARMENIANS IN TURKEY THAT LED TO ACCUSATIONS OF GENOCIDE

Mark Tran

guardian.co.uk

Friday 5 March 2010 12.11 GMT

Repression of 2.5 million people in Ottoman empire dates back to
autonomy movement in late 19th century

Ottoman soldiers posing in front of hanged Armenians in 1915. A US
congressional committee yesterday voted to label the Ottoman empire’s
actions as genocide. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Armenia believes Turkey committed genocide in the deaths of at least
1 million Armenians when they were deported from Turkish Armenia in
1915, and welcomes the non-binding resolution passed by the US house
foreign affairs committee.

Repression of the 2.5 million Armenians in the Ottoman empire dates
back to 1894-96 under Sultan Abdulhamid, when Armenians in the eastern
provinces, encouraged by Russia, began agitating for autonomy.

Abdulhamid cracked down on separatist sentiment by encouraging
nationalistic feelings against Armenians among neighbouring Kurdish
tribesmen.

A combination of Kurdish persecution and a rise in taxes led to an
Armenian uprising that was brutally suppressed by Turkish troops
and Kurdish tribesmen in 1894. Thousands of Armenians were killed
and their villages burned. Two years later, another revolt broke
out when Armenian rebels seized the Ottoman bank in Istanbul. More
than 50,000 Armenians were killed by mobs apparently co-ordinated by
government troops.

Those death tolls were dwarfed by the killings during the first world
war, when Armenians from the Caucasus formed volunteer battalions
to help the Russian army against the Turks. Early in 1915, these
battalions organised the recruiting of Turkish Armenians from behind
Turkish lines.

The Young Turk government reacted by ordering the deportation of the
Armenian population to Syria and Palestine. About 1 million died from
starvation or were killed by Arab or Kurdish tribes along the route.

Many survivors fled to Russian Armenia where, in 1918, an independent
Armenian republic was established. Armenia won independence when the
Soviet Union fractured in 1991.

Turkey accepts that atrocities took place but argues that there was
no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenians. It puts the
number of deaths during 1915 at around 300,000 and says many innocent
Muslim Turks also died in the turmoil of war.

The legal definition of genocide is found in the 1948 UN convention
on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.

Article two of this convention defines genocide as “any of the
following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part,
a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing
members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members
of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in
part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
[and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Henri Barkey, a Turkey scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace in Washington DC, said that “the overwhelming
historical evidence demonstrates that what took place in 1915 was
genocide”. He nevertheless opposes the US ruling as a needless
political manoeuvre.

Argentina, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Russia and Uruguay are among
more than 20 countries which have formally recognised genocide against
the Armenians. The European parliament and the UN sub-commission on
prevention of discrimination and protection of minorities have also
done so.https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/05/history-armenia-turkey-genocide

__,_._,___

March 7, 2010
Armenia Resolution Won’t Get Full U.S. House Vote, Aide Says

March 06, 2010, 12:01 AM EST

By Peter S. Green and James Rowley

March 6 (Bloomberg) — Democratic lawmakers bowed to concerns expressed by the Obama administration and agreed not to schedule a full House vote on a resolution that labels as genocide the killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey, a congressional aide said.

House leaders have no plans at this time for a chamber vote on the measure, which a House committee approved on March 4, the House Democratic leadership aide said yesterday. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The resolution passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee on a 23-22 vote. Turkey responded by recalling its ambassador in Washington, Namik Tan, for consultations.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had spoken out against a full House vote on March 4 while attending a conference in Costa Rica. She reiterated yesterday that President Barack Obama’s administration “strongly opposes the resolution.”

A full House vote would “impede the normalization process between Turkey and Armenia,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said in Washington yesterday before word surfaced of the leadership’s decision. “The best way for Turkey and Armenia to address their shared past is through ongoing negotiations,” he said.

The measure says the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern-day Turkey, killed 1.5 million ethnic Armenians from 1915 to 1923. It asks the president to ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects “appropriate understanding” of the atrocity and “the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution.”

Similar Recall

Turkey, a U.S. ally and NATO member, had recalled its U.S. ambassador for a brief period in protest to a similar resolution passed by a House committee in 2007. That measure never came up for a full House vote.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul said on his Web site that the March 4 committee vote was “one-sided and remote from historical realities,” and would hurt talks with Armenia.

“We’ve worked at every level with the American administration on a variety of issues and we’ve always supported Mr. Obama’s vision of peace,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Ankara yesterday. “We don’t expect this contribution of ours to be sacrificed to a few local political games.”

The resolution showed a lack of “strategic vision” on the part of U.S. lawmakers who supported it, Davutoglu said.

Iranian Trade

Turkey has been expanding trade with Iran and Obama in December called the country an “important player” in efforts to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Turkey’s border and its trade relationship with Iran makes Turkish support vital for U.S. efforts to use sanctions to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, said Bulent Aliriza, Director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

While the Armenia-related resolution came from Congress and not the administration, Turkey may not see any difference, further hampering U.S. efforts to impose sanctions on Iran, said Henri Barkey, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.

“What is clearly very likely is that on Iran we are going to get less cooperation from them,” Barkey said before the aide disclosed that the resolution won’t get a full House vote.

Turkey asserts that the resolution hurts Turkish and Armenian efforts to renew diplomatic relations that were broken over Armenia’s military intervention in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno- Karabakh region following the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union.

Clinton’s Intervention

Turkey and Armenia agreed in October to renew relations after Clinton helped the countries overcome a last-minute dispute before a signing ceremony in Zurich. Under the accords, which are waiting to be approved by Turkey’s parliament, a historical commission would investigate the killings.

After the French parliament in 2006 approved legislation making it criminal to deny that a genocide took place, Turkey said France had done “irreparable damage” to relations between the two countries.

The chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America, a lobbying group in Washington, praised the House committee shortly after it passed its genocide resolution. “You cannot have a relationship or a reconciliation based upon lies,” Kenneth Hachikian said in an interview after the vote. “Turkey can’t come to the table and say let’s reconcile but we deny what the rest of the world acknowledges.”

The House resolution noted that England, France and Russia called the killings a crime against humanity at the time, and that Turkey’s own government indicted the leaders of the massacres after World War I.

–With assistance from Hans Nichols in Washington and Steve Bryant in Ankara. Editors: Don Frederick, Mike Millard.

-0- Mar/06/2010 05:00 GMT

To contact the reporters on this story: Peter S. Green in Washington at psgreen@bloomberg.net; James Rowley in Washington at jarowley@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jim Kirk at jkirk12@bloomberg.net

==========================

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2010/03/05/past-imperfect-present-tense

The Armenian genocide

Past imperfect, present tense

Mar 5th 2010 | NEW YORK
From Economist.com

Congress reconsiders America’s official position on the Armenian genocide

TWO questions faced an American congressional panel on Thursday March 5th as it considered the mass killings of Armenians during and after the first world war by forces of the Ottoman Empire. First, was it genocide? The historical debate is as hot, and unsettled, as ever. Armenians continue to insist that it was the first genocide of the twentieth century, while Turks call the killings merely part of the chaos of the break-up of empire.

But the second question on the minds of congressmen in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives was more urgent. What is more important, fidelity to history or concern for the present? The vote took place as warming relations between Turkey and Armenia have cooled again and those between Turkey and America are under increasing strain over Iran, Israel and other affairs in the region. Turkish diplomats and politicians gave warning before the vote that the consequences would be felt across the range of issues of shared concern to the two countries. In the end the panel narrowly decided against pragmatism and chose to set straight the historical records. A resolution recognising the killings as genocide was sent to the House by a vote of 23 to 22.

When the same House committee passed a “genocide” resolution in 2007 the White House urged that the vote be scrapped. But this year, it had come with a twist; Barack Obama had promised during his election campaign to recognise the event as genocide. But before the vote his advisers said that while he acknowledges a genocide personally, he urged unsuccessfully that official interpretation be left to the parties involved. Congress is far more sensitive to lobbying than the president and to small but highly motivated groups of voters. Lobbyists working for both Armenians and Turks had been active before the vote and Armenians are concentrated in several Californian districts.

But no fashioner of foreign policy–among whom the president is by far the most important–can ignore the strategic importance of Turkey. It is a vital American ally and has the second-biggest army in NATO. The country is home to an important American air base and is a crucial supply route for America’s forces in Iraq. Relations were difficult even before the beginning of the war in Iraq in 2003. The mildly Islamist government denied the Americans the ability to open a second front in Iraq through Turkey. Turkey’s relationship with Israel has deteriorated too. Israel’s two recent wars, in Lebanon and Gaza, have outraged Turkish public opinion. Mr Obama’s more even-handed approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict has improved America’s reputation in Turkey, but not by much.

Turkey itself is caught between forces that make the Armenia issue potentially dangerous. The country’s secular, Western-oriented politicians, among others, have been discouraged by the strict terms offered by the European Union for eventual Turkish membership. In part as a result there has been a gradual realignment in Turkish foreign policy towards its more immediate neighbours. Turkey’s government seeks peaceful relations with countries at its borders, which has meant some cosying up to Iran, despite the fact that most of Turkey’s NATO allies are pushing for more sanctions against the Islamic republic over its alleged efforts to obtain nuclear weapons.

The vote comes at a sensitive time, too, for Turkey’s relations with Armenia. The pair have been at odds since Turkey closed the border in 1993, during Armenia’s war with Turkey’s ethnic cousins in Azerbaijan. Last year, protocols were agreed that foresaw an establishment of diplomatic relations and an opening of the border. But Armenia’s highest court then declared that the protocols were not in line with Armenia’s constitutionally mandated policy that foreign affairs conform to the Armenian view of the genocide. Turkey responded with fury and the protocols were endangered. The American vote will anger Turkey further and perhaps make it even more inclined to turn away from Europe, America and Armenia in favour of its Islamic neighbours.

One hope is that Turkish anger will subside if, as happened in 2007, the House leadership stops the resolution from reaching a full vote. It may do so again. Turkey recalled its ambassador after Thursday’s vote just as in 2007. The Turkish government, in a spat with the country’s nationalist army, may play the foreign-insult card to bolster its domestic strength. But ultimately the Turks are unlikely to weaken their relationship with America lightly.

March 6, 2010