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Washington
(DPA): A US
congressional committee Thursday passed a resolution declaring that
the World War I-era slayings of more than 1 million Armenians by the
Ottomans was a genocide, a move opposed by the White House and sure
to anger Turkey.
The Foreign Affairs Committee approved
the resolution with a narrow 23-22 vote, but it remained
questionable whether it will be taken to the floor for a full vote
in the House of Representatives.
As in the past, Turkey warned that the
resolution could harm relations between Washington and Ankara, a key
NATO ally in the region, and has not ruled out recalling its
ambassador - as it did in 2007 when the same committee approved a
similar measure.
Armenian Americans have been lobbying
hard to pressure President Barack Obama to follow through on a
campaign promise by applying the term genocide to the massacre. But
he has yet to do so, saying only that there should be a “full, frank
and just acknowledgment of the facts”.
Obama’s administration has opposed the
House resolution, saying it could disrupt ongoing reconciliation
talks between Turkey and Armenia, which are strongly backed by the
US.
“We’ve pressed hard to see the
progress that we’ve seen to date, and we certainly do not want to
see that jeopardised,” US State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said
Thursday.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton telephoned the Democratic chairman of the committee, Howard
Berman, to state the administration’s opposition to the resolution,
Crowley said. Obama called Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan Wednesday.
Turkey is vital to US interest in the
region. The US uses bases in Turkey to support military operations
in Iraq, and Ankara has been playing a mediating role in Middle East
peace. Washington also needs Turkey’s backing for tough measures on
Iran over its nuclear activities.
Then president George W Bush
successfully pressured the House in 2007 to not bring that
resolution to a vote. Turkey had already removed its ambassador and
threatened a further deterioration of relations if the measure
reached final passage.
Ankara warned Thursday that this could
again damage relations and had already sent representatives to
Washington to lobby against the resolution.
“Turkish-US relations are experiencing
their most successful period in history,” Erdogan said earlier this
week. “I hope that they will not be damaged by such initiatives.”
Armenians contend that 1.5 million of
their own were systematically killed by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.
Turkey maintains the death toll was much lower and resulted from
violent upheaval, not an effort to eliminate the Armenian
population.
US lawmakers with a large number of
ethnic Armenians in their districts, particularly in California, are
among the biggest backers of the genocide resolution.
The speaker of the House, Obama ally
Nancy Pelosi, has not said whether she will bring the resolution up
for a full vote.
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