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Dashnaks Blame Turkey Accords For Tight U.S. House Vote
http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/19758 24.html
05.03.2010
Tigran Avetisian
The opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun)
blamed on Friday Armenia's controversial agreements with Turkey for
the difficulty with which pro-Armenian lawmakers pushed their latest
genocide resolution through a U.S. congressional committee.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the non-binding measures
by 23 votes to 22. The outcome of the vote, which lasted for over 90
minutes, hang in the balance until the last minute. The panel passed
similar resolutions, most recently in 2007, by much wider margins in
the past.
Committee members opposed to the resolution argued, among other
things, that the fence-mending Turkish-Armenian protocols call for the
formation of a joint `subcommission' that would study the 1915 mass
killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. They also said calling
the massacres a genocide could scuttle Turkish parliamentary
ratification of the protocols.
Armen Rustamian, the de facto head of Dashnaktsutyun's organization in
Armenia, claimed this is the reason why several U.S. congressmen
declined to vote for the genocide bill this time around.
`I think all those who followed the committee debate understood and
saw very well just how these protocols can put the brakes on the
process of international recognition of the Armenian genocide,'
Rustamian told a news conference. `When we had been saying that for
months, many thought that this is just a partisan view.'
Giro Manoyan, the nationalist party's foreign policy spokesman,
agreed, saying that the protocols have given opponents of U.S.
recognition of the genocide a new argument.
The Dashnaktsutyun structures in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora
have been highly critical of President Serzh Sarkisian's policy of
rapprochement with Turkey that culminated in the signing of the
protocols last October. Their leaders have repeatedly said that Ankara
will exploit the would-be historical `subcommission' to deter the
United States and other nations from recognizing the genocide.
Sarkisian and his political allies insist, however that the
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement will not slow the recognition process.
The Armenian Assembly of America, one of the two main Armenian lobby
organizations in Washington, has subscribed to that view.
`If there were any doubts before, this establishes that there is not
and cannot be any linkage with the Protocols,' one of the Assembly
leaders told RFE/RL after the House committee vote.
Both the Assembly and the Dashnaktsutyun-controlled Armenia National
Committee of America have lobbied hard for the passage of the
resolution.
http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/19758 24.html
05.03.2010
Tigran Avetisian
The opposition Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun)
blamed on Friday Armenia's controversial agreements with Turkey for
the difficulty with which pro-Armenian lawmakers pushed their latest
genocide resolution through a U.S. congressional committee.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the non-binding measures
by 23 votes to 22. The outcome of the vote, which lasted for over 90
minutes, hang in the balance until the last minute. The panel passed
similar resolutions, most recently in 2007, by much wider margins in
the past.
Committee members opposed to the resolution argued, among other
things, that the fence-mending Turkish-Armenian protocols call for the
formation of a joint `subcommission' that would study the 1915 mass
killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. They also said calling
the massacres a genocide could scuttle Turkish parliamentary
ratification of the protocols.
Armen Rustamian, the de facto head of Dashnaktsutyun's organization in
Armenia, claimed this is the reason why several U.S. congressmen
declined to vote for the genocide bill this time around.
`I think all those who followed the committee debate understood and
saw very well just how these protocols can put the brakes on the
process of international recognition of the Armenian genocide,'
Rustamian told a news conference. `When we had been saying that for
months, many thought that this is just a partisan view.'
Giro Manoyan, the nationalist party's foreign policy spokesman,
agreed, saying that the protocols have given opponents of U.S.
recognition of the genocide a new argument.
The Dashnaktsutyun structures in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora
have been highly critical of President Serzh Sarkisian's policy of
rapprochement with Turkey that culminated in the signing of the
protocols last October. Their leaders have repeatedly said that Ankara
will exploit the would-be historical `subcommission' to deter the
United States and other nations from recognizing the genocide.
Sarkisian and his political allies insist, however that the
Turkish-Armenian rapprochement will not slow the recognition process.
The Armenian Assembly of America, one of the two main Armenian lobby
organizations in Washington, has subscribed to that view.
`If there were any doubts before, this establishes that there is not
and cannot be any linkage with the Protocols,' one of the Assembly
leaders told RFE/RL after the House committee vote.
Both the Assembly and the Dashnaktsutyun-controlled Armenia National
Committee of America have lobbied hard for the passage of the
resolution.