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TURKEY WARNS US AGAINST "GENOCIDE" BILL (REUTERS)
Khaleej Times
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNe w.asp?xfile=/data/middleeast/2010/March/middleeast _March28.xml&section=middleeast
March 2 2010
UAE
2 March 2010 ANKARA - Turkey warned on Monday relations with its ally
the United States would be damaged if a U.S. congressional panel
votes this week to label a World War One-era massacre of Armenians
by Turkish forces as genocide.
The Armenian issue has poisoned ties between NATO member Turkey and the
United States in the past. In 2007, Ankara recalled its ambassador to
Washington for consultations after a U.S. panel approved a similar
bill.
Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks but denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it
amounted to genocide -- a term employed by many Western historians
and some foreign parliaments.
Ankara has said such a resolution would also hurt efforts by Turkey
and Armenia to normalize ties.
"We want to believe that the Committee members will act responsibly
and that they are aware that the acceptance of the bill could damage
Turkey-U.S. ties as well as the efforts of peace and stability in the
South Caucasus," Turkey's Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin
told reporters.
The nonbinding resolution, to be voted on Thursday by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, would call on U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure
that U.S. policy formally refers to the massacre as "genocide" and
to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in
April -- something Obama avoided doing last year.
Obama visited Turkey last April, and his administration sees Turkey
as a key ally whose help it needs in solving confrontations from Iran
to Afghanistan.
Turkish lawmakers visiting Washington to lobby U.S. lawmakers against
the resolution said the Obama administration should do more to stop it.
When the issue last arose in Congress in 2007, then-President George
W. Bush and some Cabinet members explicitly warned against passage,
and the measure never came to a vote on the House floor.
"My impression is that the (Obama) administration is not fighting
against it very effectively," said Sukru Elekdag, a lawmaker and
former Turkish ambassador to the United States.
Elekdag said Turkish cooperation with the United States across the
region was at risk if the measure passed. Turkey is a transit route
for U.S. troops going to and from Iraq, has troops in Afghanistan
and has mediated with Iran, he said.
"Our hands (are) everywhere trying to help your country to solve
problems that it faces ... As we are sensitive to your problems,
you have to be sensitive to our problems also."
The chairman of the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee,
Murat Mercan, said passage of the U.S. resolution could jeopardize
Turkish parliamentary approval of protocols that Turkey and Armenia
signed last year to normalize ties.
Under those protocols a commission would be set up to investigate
the events of 1915, Mercan said. He and Elekdag spoke to reporters
at the Turkish embassy in Washington.
Khaleej Times
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNe w.asp?xfile=/data/middleeast/2010/March/middleeast _March28.xml&section=middleeast
March 2 2010
UAE
2 March 2010 ANKARA - Turkey warned on Monday relations with its ally
the United States would be damaged if a U.S. congressional panel
votes this week to label a World War One-era massacre of Armenians
by Turkish forces as genocide.
The Armenian issue has poisoned ties between NATO member Turkey and the
United States in the past. In 2007, Ankara recalled its ambassador to
Washington for consultations after a U.S. panel approved a similar
bill.
Muslim Turkey accepts that many Christian Armenians were killed by
Ottoman Turks but denies that up to 1.5 million died and that it
amounted to genocide -- a term employed by many Western historians
and some foreign parliaments.
Ankara has said such a resolution would also hurt efforts by Turkey
and Armenia to normalize ties.
"We want to believe that the Committee members will act responsibly
and that they are aware that the acceptance of the bill could damage
Turkey-U.S. ties as well as the efforts of peace and stability in the
South Caucasus," Turkey's Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin
told reporters.
The nonbinding resolution, to be voted on Thursday by the House Foreign
Affairs Committee, would call on U.S. President Barack Obama to ensure
that U.S. policy formally refers to the massacre as "genocide" and
to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in
April -- something Obama avoided doing last year.
Obama visited Turkey last April, and his administration sees Turkey
as a key ally whose help it needs in solving confrontations from Iran
to Afghanistan.
Turkish lawmakers visiting Washington to lobby U.S. lawmakers against
the resolution said the Obama administration should do more to stop it.
When the issue last arose in Congress in 2007, then-President George
W. Bush and some Cabinet members explicitly warned against passage,
and the measure never came to a vote on the House floor.
"My impression is that the (Obama) administration is not fighting
against it very effectively," said Sukru Elekdag, a lawmaker and
former Turkish ambassador to the United States.
Elekdag said Turkish cooperation with the United States across the
region was at risk if the measure passed. Turkey is a transit route
for U.S. troops going to and from Iraq, has troops in Afghanistan
and has mediated with Iran, he said.
"Our hands (are) everywhere trying to help your country to solve
problems that it faces ... As we are sensitive to your problems,
you have to be sensitive to our problems also."
The chairman of the Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee,
Murat Mercan, said passage of the U.S. resolution could jeopardize
Turkish parliamentary approval of protocols that Turkey and Armenia
signed last year to normalize ties.
Under those protocols a commission would be set up to investigate
the events of 1915, Mercan said. He and Elekdag spoke to reporters
at the Turkish embassy in Washington.