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Turkish Government Condemns US Congressional Vote

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  • Turkish Government Condemns US Congressional Vote

    TURKISH GOVERNMENT CONDEMNS US CONGRESSIONAL VOTE

    11:00:14 - 05/03/2010
    http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/politics-lr ahos17055.html

    The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on
    Thursday endorsed a resolution calling for Washington's recognition of
    World War I-era killings of Armenians during the last days of the
    Ottoman Empire as genocide.

    23 of the panel's 46 members voted for the resolution and 22 voted
    against it while one committee member declined to cast a vote.

    The move may jeopardize Turkey's ties with both the United States and Armenia.

    Turkey condemned US congressional vote labeling the 1915 killings of
    Armenians as genocide and recalled its ambassador to Washington for
    consultations.

    `We condemn this resolution accusing Turkey of a crime that it has not
    committed,' the Turkish Prime Ministry said in a written statement.

    `Our Ambassador to Washington Namık Tan was recalled tonight to Ankara
    for consultations after the development,' said the statement, which
    came immediately after the US panel passed the measure in a
    closer-than-expected vote.

    In Washington, Turkish lobbying deputies pushed against the resolution
    until the very last moment. Speaking to Turkish television channel
    NTV, opposition Republican People's Party deputy Å?ükrü ElekdaÄ? said,
    `The US administration has left Turkey alone.'

    Suat KınıklıoÄ? lu of the ruling Justice and Development Party said the
    supporters of the measure did not expect such a close vote, claiming
    the outcome taught them a lesson.

    The non-binding resolution now heads to a floor vote at the House of
    Representatives, where its prospects for passage are uncertain. The
    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who supports the resolution,
    will decide if or when it will come to a floor vote.

    The resolution the committee endorsed calls on President Barack Obama
    to ensure that U.S. policy formally refers to the killings as genocide
    and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue
    in April ` something he avoided doing last year.

    Gül's call

    Turkey has been warning that any House or Senate floor adoption of an
    Armenian genocide resolution would lead to a major and lasting
    deterioration in relations with the United States and sabotage a
    planned reconciliation process with Yerevan.

    Earlier, Turkish President Abdullah Gül urged Obama to use his
    influence to block the resolution, warning that its adoption would
    hurt ties between the two NATO allies. `Whatever the outcome is,
    Turkey will not be the loser. Others will lose from a negative
    outcome,' said Turkish Parliament Foreign Affairs Commission head
    Murat Mercan, one of a group of Turkish deputies who traveled to
    Washington, D.C., to lobby against the resolution.

    Similar genocide resolutions passed the same committee in 2000, 2005
    and 2007, but none of them could reach a House floor vote because of
    extensive pressure from former presidents Bill Clinton and George W.
    Bush.

    The Clinton and Bush administrations strongly opposed the previous
    Armenian genocide resolutions, saying their congressional passage
    would deeply hurt U.S. national-security interests. But the Obama
    administration has thus far declined to play the national-security
    card on this matter.

    During his election campaign, Obama pledged to recognize the killings
    as genocide, but refrained from using the term in his message last
    year to commemorate the killings.

    U.S. diplomats in recent weeks have been urging the Turkish government
    to implement the reconciliation process with Armenia without any
    preconditions, saying that in the absence of this action, genocide
    resolutions in Congress may be unstoppable.

    The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed in October a set of
    agreements under which Ankara and Yerevan would set up normal
    diplomatic relations and reopen their land border. But the
    normalization process is now faltering because of the Nagorno-Karabakh
    dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey's close friend and
    ally.
    Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed during World
    War I as the Ottoman Empire fell apart. Turkey firmly rejects the
    genocide label and argues that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at
    least as many Turks died in what it says was civil strife.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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