Despite its persistent denial that those events can be recognized as a genocide of Armenians, Turkey has fallen short of proving the opposite for decades. The US House Committee on Foreign Affairs is to decide later today whether to recognize as genocide the mass killing of about 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
At a press conference held in Ankara on Monday, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Özügergin said such a resolution would damage ties between Ankara and Washington and undermine efforts to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia.
Two protocols signed between Turkey and Armenia last year in October envisaging normalization of ties between the two neighbors as well as opening their common border have encouraged US President Barack Obama not to use the word “genocide” during his annual April 24 speech commemorating the alleged genocide of Armenians under Ottoman rule.
But the protocols have not been approved by either the Turkish or Armenian parliaments. Though the Turkish government submitted the protocols to its Parliament, it did not debate it in the General Assembly because the Armenian constitutional court issued a decision last month that irked Turkey. The court, while approving the protocols, also referred to the genocide of Armenians as well as to long-held Armenian claims on Turkish territory. Ankara has been asking Yerevan to make a statement that would allay Turkish uneasiness over its court decision before pressing for the protocols to be adopted by its Parliament.
Nevertheless, because Turkey has not ratified the protocols to normalize ties with Armenia, this has not only played into the hands of the Armenian diaspora but has also weakened the US administration's thesis that it is not the duty of parliaments to decide on issues such as claims of genocide.
The Armenian lobby is strong within the US Congress, which is preparing for midterm elections in November. The Jewish lobby, equally influential within the US Congress, will this time not support the Turkish position due to already strained ties between Ankara and Tel Aviv. Turkey continues to strongly condemn Israel over its December 2008 assault on Gaza. Furthermore, as Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said several months ago, Turkish-Israeli relations cannot be normalized unless Israel agrees on a peaceful compromise in the Palestinian issue.
Despite ups and downs on some foreign policy issues such as Iran, Turkey and the US are close NATO allies whose interests converge in many regional issues of conflict such as Afghanistan and Iraq. But Turkey's strained ties with Israel stand as an important factor in the further weakened Turkish ability to prevent US congressmen from adopting the genocide resolution in the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
One US diplomat recalls that if Turkey annoys Israel, this means it annoys the US as well. In real terms, Israel is the only US ally in the Middle East, and the US sees Israel as the only true democracy in the region.
It appears that this time Turkey has little chance of preventing the Committee on Foreign Affairs from approving the Armenian genocide resolution. If the resolution is adopted, it is expected that the US House of Representatives will vote in favor of the resolution before April 24. This will not be the end of the world for Turkey, but we have to expect serious repercussions in Turkish-US relations.
