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ANKARA: US House to receive 'Genocide' bill again

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  • ANKARA: US House to receive 'Genocide' bill again

    Hürriyet, Turkey
    Feb 7 2009


    US House to receive 'Genocide' bill again

    WASHINGTON - Pro-Armenian lawmakers in the U.S. House of
    Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, are preparing to
    introduce later this month a fresh resolution calling on the United
    States to formally recognize the 1915incidents in the Ottoman Empire
    as "genocide," sources said.

    The bill will be introduced by four senior members of the Armenian
    Caucus in the House of Representatives, Adam Schiff, a democrat from
    California, Frank Pallone, a democrat from New Jersey, George
    Radanovich, a republican from California, and Mark Kirk, a republican
    from Illinois, the sources said. The pro-Armenian lobby is presently
    working to garner the support of a large number of lawmakers as
    cosponsors for the resolution.

    Parliamentary deputies, Suat Kiniklioglu and Cuneyt Yuksel, from the
    ruling Justice and Development Party, currently on a visit to
    Washington, confirmed that the U.S.-Armenians were working hard on two
    fronts to win U.S. "genocide recognition" this year. "With the Barack
    Obama and Joe Biden administration and a new Congress now in place, we
    have the best opportunity in years to end Turkey's gag rule on the
    United States's recognition of the Armenian genocide," The Armenian
    National Committee of America, the largest U.S.-Armenian group, said
    recently.

    Two-pronged effort

    On one hand the Armenians are urging President Obama to keep his
    promise last year to recognize the "genocide" if elected. And on the
    other, they are seeking congressional recognition. When asked if he
    thought President Obama would qualify the Armenian killings as
    "genocide," Kiniklioglu said he did not know.

    With Obama as president and many other pro-Armenian officials in top
    positions in the new administration and Congress, Armenians hope that
    this time they will win formal U.S. "genocide recognition." Analysts
    also agreed that this is highly probable. But the Armenians fear that
    this may not be the case, given the fact that some earlier presidents,
    including Obama's predecessor George W. Bush, have promised "genocide
    recognition," and then changed their decisions when in power.

    Located in the middle of the volatile Middle East, the Caucasus and
    the Balkans, Turkey warns that formal U.S. recognition of the killings
    as genocide would hurt bilateral relations in a major and lasting way.
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