It seems an odd way to treat a friend.
Washington's relations with Turkey, a key Nato ally, have been on the slide
since 2003 when Ankara's parliament refused to allow US troops to transit into
Iraq. That infuriated the Bush administration. Ensuing chaos in Iraq and the
impetus the occupation has given Kurdish secessionism infuriated Turks in
their turn. Iran and Hamas are other points of strain. One recent poll found
that 81% of Turks disapprove of US policies.
Now the relationship is heading for a
potentially spectacular rupture following the decision of the US House of
Representatives' newly installed Democratic leadership to follow France in
endorsing a bill officially recognising as genocide the 1915 killings of
Christian Armenians by Muslim Turks. As matters stand, there is sufficient
bipartisan support to pass the measure if, as expected, it is put to a vote in
the next few weeks.
The genocide label is an ultra-sensitive
issue in Turkey. It has long claimed that mass killings at the time by both
sides were part of the civil upheavals accompanying the collapse of the
Ottoman empire. "If this measure is adopted it will create a very serious
problem in US-Turkish relations," a senior Turkish official said yesterday.
"You cannot put Turkey in the same shoes as the Nazis." Armenia (and the
Armenian diaspora) should accept a proposal by Turkey's prime minister, Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, to set up a joint commission to study what happened, the
official said.
But politics in Ankara and Washington are
stoking confrontation. A presidential election is due in Turkey in May,
followed by parliamentary polls this autumn. Neither Mr Erdogan, tipped as the
next president, nor other candidates can ignore intense national feelings
stirred by the genocide debate. At the same time, the Democratic speaker,
Nancy Pelosi, like other House members from California, has a vociferous
Armenian-American constituency to placate. When Turkey's foreign minister,
Abdullah Gul, was in Washington last week, she refused to meet him. "Local
politics must not be allowed to poison strategic ties," Mr Gul said later.
Passage of the bill would create a "nightmare".
Calls are already being heard in Turkey for a
downgrading of bilateral military cooperation, including logistical assistance
to US forces in Iraq. General Yasar Buyukanit, chief of the Turkish general
staff, went to the Pentagon this week to spell out the possible damaging
consequences.
"Turkey is playing the security card against
the genocide bill," wrote columnist Mehmet Ali Birand of the Turkish Daily
News. That meant reminding the Americans of Turkey's contributions in
Afghanistan and Kosovo, its supportive ties to Israel - Ehud Olmert was in
Ankara yesterday - and the way it "actively participates in communications
between Iran and the US".
The White House opposes the bill but may be
unable to stop it. Meanwhile, the US is urging Turkish "outreach" to Armenia
in the wake of the Hrant Dink murder.
But new reasons for killing off the
resolution are emerging every day. One is that a surge in anti-Americanism
following its passage could translate into a Turkish decision to ignore
Washington and send its troops into northern Iraq, with potentially disastrous
consequences for US efforts to stabilise the country.
The senior Turkish official said there was no
plan to intervene and no link to the genocide bill. But Ankara is increasingly
impatient over US reluctance to suppress armed PKK separatists who launch
raids into south-east Turkey from Iraqi Kurdistan. And according to Asli
Aydinbas, of Sabah newspaper, a "limited and defined" Turkish military
intervention in Iraq is already on the cards.
"The US government believes passage of the
Armenian resolution would make a cross-border operation more likely," he said.
"Even a debate on the floor of the House of Representatives would end
Washington's power to deter such an operation." Seen this way, the genocide
bill could spark a whole new bloodbath.
