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Turkey warns US over Armenian “genocide” resolution
Published: 05 March, 2010, 17:40
Edited: 12 March, 2010, 13:39
It’s estimated, during World War I up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed; two thirds of the Armenian population (1,75 millions) were deported to Syria and Palestine; 600 000 were either killed or died of starvation during the journey.
(2.5Mb) embed videoTAGS: Conflict, Crime, Scandal, CIS, EU, Hate crimes, Obama, Bush, Hillary Clinton, Protest, Politics, Human rights, Law, History, USA
The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee has approved a resolution that recognizes the World War I-era deaths of Armenians in Ottoman-era Turkey as an act of “genocide”.
After hours of discussion, the House of Foreign Affairs Committee barely passed the resolution with a 23-22 vote that labels the murder of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide.
Immediately after the vote, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Washington, condemning the US Committee’s decision.
"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," Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement.
Erdogan went on to warn that “Turkey will not be responsible for the negative results that this event may lead to,” saying that Washington’s decision will “harm Turkey-U.S. ties” and could derail talks aimed at opening the border between Turkey and Armenia.
Ankara sealed the border in 1993 to protest Armenia’s war with neighboring Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, the Azerbaijani parliament has also voiced its objections to the resolution.
“Unfortunately, by this decision, the US has demonstrated its attitude towards the Turkic nations. I think that everybody, who considers himself a Turk, should react adequately and condemn the US Committee’s decision,” said Azerbaijani deputy Ganira Pashaeva. She added that “should take all necessary steps to stop the US Congress from adopting this resolution.”
US, Washington: Turkey's Ambassador to US Namik Tan gives a speech on March 4, 2010 during the Armenian genocide vote meeting. (AFP Photo / Anatolia News Agencu / Turkey Out)
Like the Turkish and Azerbaijan response, Armenia’s reaction didn’t come as a surprise. The Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan has praised the adoption of the resolution, saying that they “highly appreciate the decision” of the congressional panel. “This is further proof of the devotion of the American people to universal human values and is an important step towards the prevention of crimes against humanity," said Nalbandyan.
However, the Committee’s decision is only another step in recognizing the genocide.
The 23-22 vote now sends the measure to the full House of Representatives, where the prospects for passage are uncertain. In 2007 a similar notion was adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee; however, it never made to the next level. After intense pressure by the Bush administration, who feared passage of the resolution would harm their war effort in the Middle East, the resolution was not brought to the House floor.
Despite US President Barack Obama’s vows during the 2008 presidential campaign to recognize the killings of Armenians as genocide, the White House had urged against the vote, fearing that it could anger Washington’s NATO ally, Turkey. However, last year at the annual White House statement on the day marking the Armenian remembrance, Obama also failed to call the killings a “genocide”.
 A Turkish official showing bread to Armenians dying of starvation. (AGBU's photostream ) |
It’s estimated that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Turks during World War I. Many historians call this the “first genocide of the 20th century.”
A number of countries – including Germany, Russia, Italy, France, Canada, Greece and most of the US states, as well as the Vatican, the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches have denounced the killings as genocide.
Turkey however, says the death toll has been inflated and those killed were the victims of civil war and unrest, denying that genocide had taken place. Ankara insists, in order for Armenia to have diplomatic and economic relations with Turkey, it should drop its claim for international recognition of genocide.
Olga Masalkova, RT
05.03.2010, 10:12
6 comments
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Everyone may have suffered in the course of the last Century. But not everyone caused equal suffering. Nor does anyone choose what kind of neighbours they have. All have full responsibility for their own behaviour. It has been the experience of the Baltics through most of their long history that their large Eastern neighbour chooses to be unfriendly regardless of what the Baltics do or don’t do.
March 10, 2010, 12:49, Marzipan6 wrote > Whereas I apparently have a talent to “make Vse.berlin post”, I clearly have no talent in helping Vse.berlin to acknowledge realities. The realities are that both Turkey and Russia are significantly handicapped in their relations with other countries by their unacknowledged and unatoned-for international crimes from the Ottoman and Soviet eras. Umm no. I cannot see that either Turkey or Russia is handicapped in any way. From my point of view demanders of apologies are handicapped. Instead of moving on they put the fingers in the old wounds and scream loud. Everyone suffered in the run of the century why would you make division into first-sort victims and second-sort. If you tell about so called suffering of Estonians to, let’s say, Philippians I’m pretty sure they will gladly will trade the places with you. In reality all these demands for apologies, badmouthing are just the tools for politicians. Like Glad rightly notices demands are instrumental to punish Turkey for non compliance. If we make parallels we will find all your demands in the same stream. What I want to say is that you are playing others games. Or should I say you are played in the game of others. Does it make you happier? Well, may be. But one day you will wake up and will find out that Russia did not disappear from the map and you are still neighbors, and you do share the same history with all the good and bad moments. May be this morning you will understand that it is better to have a friendly neighbor. Right now you choose to have a friendly outlander and furious neighbor. Probably you get some kick in that. Who knows, but please keep it up. It is a fun to watch it.
Google "Young Turks" who were Khazarian Jews; Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was half Jewish.