Turkey Condemns US Armenia Vote
BBC
Oct 11, 2007
The Turkish president has denounced a vote by a committee of the US
Congress recognising as genocide the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks.
President Abdullah Gul said the decision was unacceptable and had no validity
for Turkey, which has always denied any genocide took place.
The White House said it was very disappointed by the non-binding vote.
It fears Turkey could now limit cooperation in the war on terror and
provision of military bases near Iraq.
The genocide bill passed in the House Foreign Affairs Committee by 27 votes
to 21 - the first step towards holding a vote in the House of Representatives.
President Bush had argued against a vote in favour of the bill, saying "its
passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in Nato and in the
global war on terror".
Turkey is a regional operational hub for the US military, and some suggest
access to Incirlik airbase, or other supply lines crucial to US forces in Iraq
and Afghanistan, could be cut in response.
'Invalid'
President Gul was quick to attack the vote late on Wednesday evening, saying
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".
"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," Mr Gul said,
according to the Anatolian news agency.
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford in Istanbul says it is very unusual to hear such
high-level political reaction so late at night from the Turkish government - a
sign of how seriously it takes this.
Meanwhile in Washington the US Undersecretary of State, Nicholas Burns, told
the BBC that the Bush administration was "deeply disappointed".
"The United States recognizes the immense suffering of the Armenian people
due to mass killings and forced deportations at the end of the Ottoman Empire,"
he said.
"We support a full and fair accounting of the atrocities that befell as many
as 1.5m Armenians during World War I, which House Resolution 106 does not do."
'Sobering'
Correspondents say Wednesday's result means that only a change of heart by
the opposition Democrats, who control Congress, can now stop a full vote on the
bill.
A German soldier took photos of Armenian deportees at
the time
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Divisions within the Foreign Affairs Committee crossed party lines with eight
Democrats voting against the measure and eight Republicans voting for it.
Tom Lantos, the committee's chairman, had opened the debate by admitting the
resolution posed a "sobering" choice.
"We have to weigh the desire to express our solidarity with the Armenian
people... against the risk that it could cause young men and women in the
uniform of the United States armed services to pay an even heavier price than
they are currently paying," he said.
Mr Lantos, himself a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust, said he would
introduce a resolution praising US-Turkish friendship next week, according to
AFP news agency.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to take up their version
of the resolution in the future.
Border concerns
The controversy comes at a delicate time for relations between Turkey and the
United States, our correspondent says.
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed that the Turkish parliament
could discuss a motion as soon as Thursday that would authorise cross border
military incursions into northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdish PKK separatists.
The move comes after an escalation in attacks by the PKK killed almost 30
soldiers and civilians in just over a week.
Mr Erdogan said such authorization, which would be valid for one year, would
ensure all options were available to Turkey in its fight against the PKK.
That includes sending troops into northern Iraq, where the prime minister
said more than 3,000 PKK fighters are based. The government is under immense
pressure though to act, but Washington has warned Ankara against any unilateral
moves that would destabilise Iraq even further.
After the Armenian vote in Congress, our correspondent says, Turkey will be
far less inclined to heed instructions from the US on anything.
