White House works to avert rift with Ankara
By Khody Akhavi
A US House of Representatives resolution recognizing as "genocide" the deaths
of 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago has
drawn heavy criticism from the George W Bush administration, which argues that
the non-binding and largely symbolic legislation could harm relations with
Turkey at a particularly crucial time.
Senior US officials, meanwhile, were in Ankara at the weekend in last-ditch
efforts to persuade Turkey not to launch a major military
incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan to target armed separatists.
The influential House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Congressman Tom
Lantos, voted 27-21 to endorse the legislation on Wednesday despite the pleas
of President Bush, who said it threatened to undermine US foreign policy in the
Middle East.
"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in
1915, but this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass
killings," said Bush. "Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a
key ally in NATO and in the global 'war on terror'."
Armenia and Turkey have long opposed each other's version of events during and
after World War I which led to the forced migration and death of large numbers
of Armenians. Armenia claims that up to 1.5 million were murdered or starved to
death as part of a systematic effort by the Turkish government to end the
national liberation of the Armenian people, and considers Turkey's actions as
"the first genocide of the 20th century".
Turkish officials do not deny that mass killings took place but argue that the
deaths resulted from widespread fighting that occurred during the collapse of
the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire, clashes that also left hundreds of thousands
of Muslim Turks dead.
Turkey claims that 600,000 Armenians died after they allied themselves with
Russian forces invading the Ottoman Empire, and that they were not the victims
of a government-sponsored campaign of genocide.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert
Gates issued a joint appeal to the Congress, and offered to provide House
members with a classified briefing to discuss what they described as the
"national security interests" at stake.
Legislators who voted for the measure defended it as a stand against
state-sponsored atrocities.
"I am Jewish. I have both a moral and person obligation to condemn all acts of
genocide no matter where or when they occur," said Rep Gabrielle Giffords, an
Arizona Democrat, in a statement. "Our nation's relationship with Turkey is
important. Our relationships with all other countries are important. But our
relationship with humanity matters as well. I cannot vote to deny that the
horrific actions of the Armenian genocide occurred."
Turkey severed military ties with France after its Parliament voted in 2006 to
make the denial of the Armenian genocide a crime. Following the US
congressional vote this week, Ankara ordered its ambassador in Washington to
return home for "consultations", but says he has not been formally withdrawn.
"A similar reaction by the elected government of Turkey to a full House
resolution could harm American troops in the field, constrain our ability to
supply our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and significantly damage our efforts
to promote reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey at a key turning point in
their relations," said Rice and Gates in the letter, as reviewed and reported
by the Associated Press.
On Thursday, Gates warned of the "enormous implications" for US military
operations in Iraq if Turkey limited flights over its airspace and restricted
access to Incirlik Air base.
"All I can say is that a resolution that looks back almost 100 years to an
event that took place under a predecessor government, the Ottomans, and that
has enormous present day implications for American soldiers and marines and
sailors and airmen in Iraq, is something we need to take very seriously," Gates
told reporters in London.
Turkey provides significant logistical support for the US-led war effort in
Iraq. About 70% of all air cargo sent to Iraq passes through or comes through
Turkey, as does 30% of fuel and virtually all the new armoured vehicles
designed to withstand mines and bombs, according to Gates.
The legislation also comes as Turkey's government prepares to seek permission
from parliament to carry out a cross-border offensive against an estimated
3,000 to 5,000 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) based in northern
Iraq, in retaliation for rebel attacks that have killed 29 Turkish soldiers,
police and civilians in the past two weeks.
Washington has warned that a Turkish military attack across the border in Iraq
could throw into chaos the only relatively stable region of Iraq.
The PKK, an armed separatist group whose goal has been to create an independent
socialist Kurdish state, is considered a terrorist organization by the US,
Europe and NATO, and Turkey claims it has been responsible for more than 30,000
deaths, the majority of them civilians, when it began using political violence
in the early 1980s.
Turkey conducted its last major operation into Iraq in 1997.
Turkey's President and head of the Islamist ruling Justice and Development
Party (AKP), Abdullah Gul, called the committee vote "unacceptable", and said,
"Some politicians in the United States have once against sacrificed important
matters to petty domestic politics despite all calls to common sense."
The Armenian resolution debate has also unleashed an aggressive lobbying
campaign by Ankara, which is spending more than US$300,000 a month on
sophisticated public relations specialists and former Washington lawmakers to
help defeat the measure.
The Turkish Embassy is paying $100,000 a month to lobbying firm DLA Piper,
which is associated with former Democratic House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt,
and $105,000 to the Livingston Group (connected to former Republican lawmaker
Robert L Livingston), and it recently paid public relations firm
Fleishman-Hillard $114,000 dollars a month, according to records filed with the
Justice Department.
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