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Killing of Armenians in WW-I a ‘genocide’: US house panel:
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 ....Read
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Ankara:
NATO-member Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to the United
States for consultations after a vote in a US congressional
committee branded the World War One mass killing of Armenians by
Ottoman forces genocide.
The Foreign
Affairs Committee narrowly approved the resolution with a 23-22
vote, but it remained questionable whether it will be taken to the
floor for a full vote in the House of Representatives.
In a statement,
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan also said he was seriously
concerned that the non-binding resolution would harm Turkish-US ties
and efforts by Muslim Turkey and Christian Armenia to bury a century
of hostility.
"We condemn this
bill that blames the Turkish nation for a crime it did not commit.
Our Washington ambassador was invited to Ankara tonight for
consultations," Erdogan said in a statement posted on his office's
website.
"We are seriously
concerned that this bill approved by the committee, despite all our
warnings, will harm Turkey-US ties and efforts to normalize
Turkey-Armenia relations." Turkey, a Muslim but secular democracy,
plays a vital role for US interests from Iran to Afghanistan to the
Middle East.
Turkey and Armenia
last year signed an historic deal to bury a century of hostility and
open their border. The deal, signed with the endorsement of the
United States, European Union and Russia, still has to be ratified
by both parliaments in Ankara and Yerevan.
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.
In 2007, Ankara
recalled its ambassador after a US panel approved a similar bill.
Then-President George W. Bush warned against passage and the measure
never came to a vote on the House floor. The ambassador returned to
his post after one week.
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