Turkey dismayed at US vote on Armenian genocide
LUCIA KUBOSOVA
11.10.2007 @ 09:41 CET
Turkey's leaders have condemned a non-binding resolution passed on Wednesday (10 October) by a US congress committee recognising the 1915-17 Armenian killings by Ottoman Turks as genocide.
"This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, is not regarded by the Turkish people as valid or of any value," Turkish president Abdullah Gul said in reaction to the vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee by 27 votes to 21.
Armenia claims that Ottoman Turks in 1915 killed an estimated 1.5 million of its citizens (Photo: Wikipedia.org)
According to Anatolian news agency, he suggested that some US politicians had "closed their ears to calls to be reasonable and once again sought to sacrifice big problems for small domestic political games."
After the committee vote, the bill can move ahead towards a debate and vote in the House of Representatives, amid strong opposition by the White House.
"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people," US president George W. Bush reacted, adding "This resolution is not the right response to these mass killings," Bloomberg reported.
Congress' move comes at a difficult time for US-Turkey relations, with Ankara considering whether to approve a cross border operation in northern Iraq in order to chase down Kurdish PKK separatists.
Turkey's government is under domestic pressure to act following a series of attacks by separatists against Turkish soldiers which led to 30 casualties in less than two weeks.
On the other hand, Washington is urging it to prevent unilateral action as it could further harm the fragile situation in Iraq.
The US administration also fears that a public backlash in Turkey, as the American key NATO ally, could lead to restrictions on other crucial joint operations, such as in Afganistan, or the closure of Incirlik, an air base in Turkey used by the US Air Force.
Similar calls in Europe
The US genocide resolution echoes some similar initiatives previously made in Europe.
France's National Assembly last October approved a socialist-drafted proposal which stated that those denying the genocide should be punished by one year in prison and pay a fine of €45,000.
But the bill was all but dropped as a result of a political decision by the ruling centre-right. This meant it was not pushed forward for a vote in the country's senate before the previous parliament got re-elected.
Shortly ahead of the French vote, the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee voted in favour of a report suggesting Turkey should recognize the Armenian genocide as a condition for its EU accession. The request was later dropped, however.
The controversial dispute centres around the claim by Armenia that Ottoman Turks in 1915 killed an estimated 1.5 million of its citizens - something Turkey has always strongly denied.
