{"id":383421,"date":"2010-03-03T03:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T08:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13049624.post-2189139602588166230"},"modified":"2010-03-04T17:17:26","modified_gmt":"2010-03-04T22:17:26","slug":"turkey-condemns-house-panel-endorsement-of-armenian-%e2%80%99genocide%e2%80%99-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/383421","title":{"rendered":"Turkey condemns house panel endorsement of Armenian \u2019genocide\u2019 resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

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WASHINGTON\/ANKARA – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News Thursday, March 4, 2010<\/p>\n

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday endorsed a resolution calling for Washington\u2019s recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire as \u201cgenocide.\u201d<\/p>\n

23 of the panel\u2019s 46 members voted for the resolution and 22 voted against it while one committee member declined to cast a vote.<\/p>\n

The move may jeopardize Turkey\u2019s ties with both the United States and Armenia.<\/p>\n

Turkey condemned US congressional vote labeling the 1915 killings of Armenians as \u201cgenocide\u201d and recalled its ambassador to Washington for consultations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe condemn this resolution accusing Turkey of a crime that it has not committed,\u201d the Turkish Prime Ministry said in a written statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Ambassador to Washington Nam\u0131k Tan was recalled tonight to Ankara for consultations after the development,\u201d said the statement, which came immediately after the US panel passed the measure in a closer-than-expected vote.<\/p>\n

In Washington, Turkish lobbying deputies pushed against the resolution until the very last moment. Speaking to Turkish television channel NTV, opposition Republican People\u2019s Party deputy \u015e\u00fckr\u00fc Elekda\u011f said, \u201cThe US administration has left Turkey alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Suat K\u0131n\u0131kl\u0131o\u011flu of the ruling Justice and Development Party said the supporters of the measure did not expect such a close vote, claiming the outcome taught them a lesson.<\/p>\n

The non-binding resolution now heads to a floor vote at the House of Representatives, where its prospects for passage are uncertain. The House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who supports the resolution, will decide if or when it will come to a floor vote.<\/p>\n

The resolution the committee endorsed calls on President Barack Obama to ensure that U.S. policy formally refers to the killings as \u201cgenocide\u201d and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in April \u2013 something he avoided doing last year.<\/p>\n

G\u00fcl\u2019s call<\/p>\n

Turkey has been warning that any House or Senate floor adoption of an Armenian \u201cgenocide\u201d resolution would lead to a major and lasting deterioration in relations with the United States and sabotage a planned reconciliation process with Yerevan.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Turkish President Abdullah G\u00fcl urged Obama to use his influence to block the resolution, warning that its adoption would hurt ties between the two NATO allies. \u201cWhatever the outcome is, Turkey will not be the loser. Others will lose from a negative outcome,\u201d said Turkish Parliament Foreign Affairs Commission head Murat Mercan, one of a group of Turkish deputies who traveled to Washington, D.C., to lobby against the resolution.<\/p>\n

Similar \u201cgenocide\u201d resolutions passed the same committee in 2000, 2005 and 2007, but none of them could reach a House floor vote because of extensive pressure from former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.<\/p>\n

The Clinton and Bush administrations strongly opposed the previous Armenian \u201cgenocide\u201d resolutions, saying their congressional passage would deeply hurt U.S. national-security interests. But the Obama administration has thus far declined to play the national-security card on this matter.<\/p>\n

During his election campaign, Obama pledged to recognize the killings as \u201cgenocide,\u201d but refrained from using the term in his message last year to commemorate the killings.<\/p>\n

U.S. diplomats in recent weeks have been urging the Turkish government to implement the reconciliation process with Armenia without any preconditions, saying that in the absence of this action, \u201cgenocide\u201d resolutions in Congress may be unstoppable.<\/p>\n

The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed in October a set of agreements under which Ankara and Yerevan would set up normal diplomatic relations and reopen their land border. But the normalization process is now faltering because of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey\u2019s close friend and ally.<\/p>\n

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed during World War I as the Ottoman Empire fell apart. Turkey firmly rejects the \u201cgenocide\u201d label and argues that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in what it says was civil strife.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON\/ANKARA – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News Thursday, March 4, 2010 The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday endorsed a resolution calling for Washington\u2019s recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire as \u201cgenocide.\u201d 23 of the panel\u2019s 46 members voted for the resolution […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4032,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-383421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4032"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=383421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}