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MULTIMEDIA
May 27, 2012
 
 
 
 
 
 

Eyes on Washington ahead of vote on ‘genocide’

As a US House of Representatives committee is scheduled today to vote on a resolution that would recognize the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide, all eyes in Ankara are fixed on Washington.
4 March 2010 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, ANKARA
As a US House of Representatives committee is scheduled today to vote on a resolution that would recognize the World War I-era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide, all eyes in Ankara are fixed on Washington.

Thus far there has been no signal received from the White House concerning the administration’s position on the resolution, while Turkey has clearly voiced its expectation that the US president exert efforts to prevent passage of the resolution.

Although Ankara apparently doesn’t have high hopes of President Barack Obama intervening in the issue at least at the committee level, Turkish sources involved in the issue have suggested that the majority of committee members are still undecided, which means there is a chance the resolution will be rejected by the committee.

At the US State Department, speaking at a press briefing on Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs Philip J. Crowley preferred to recall Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks. Reiterating US support for ongoing normalization efforts between Ankara and Yerevan, Crowley said, “As the secretary said last week, we think that there is ample room for Turkey and Armenia to evaluate the historical facts as to what happened decades ago.”

When reminded of the fact that Clinton’s remarks were interpreted by some Turks as being in favor of Turkey while by Armenia as favoring the Armenian diaspora and asked for a clarification, Crowley said: “The advancement of normalized relations between Armenia and Turkey is in the interest of both countries. It’s in the interest of the region as well. We cannot afford to look at this in zero sum terms, that somehow scoring a point on one side is a loss for the other. … There’s not a common understanding of what happened 90 years ago. But we value the courageous steps that both leaders have taken, and we just continue to encourage both countries to move forward and not look backward.”

A clear move against the resolution, meanwhile, has come from the business front, as the US aerospace and defense industry has urged House of Representatives lawmakers to reject the measure, warning it could jeopardize US exports to Turkey.

The chief executives of Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., Raytheon Co., United Technologies Corp. and Northrop Grumman Corp. issued a rare joint letter, warning that passage of the measure by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs could lead to “a rupture in US-Turkey relations” and put American jobs at risk. “Alienating a significant NATO ally and trading partner would have negative repercussions for US geopolitical interests and efforts to boost both exports and employments,” the CEOs warned in a Feb. 26 letter to the committee’s Democratic chairman, Representative Howard Berman.

In Damascus, meanwhile, Syrian Information Minister Mohsen Bilal denied on Wednesday that there is a mass grave of Anatolian Armenians in Deir Zor, Syria, as suggested in CBS’s “60 Minutes” which aired a program called “Battle Over History” on Sunday.

“Deir Zor is to Armenians what Auschwitz is to Jews,” said the CBS program information which Bilal labeled as “fictitious.” “If we had information, we would not let them shoot video-footage here,” he also said.

 
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© Feza Gazetecilik A.Ş. 2007, Ahmet Taner Kışlalı Cad. No: 6, Bahçelievler - İstanbul 34194 Turkey, +90 (212) 454 1454, +90 (212) 454 1497(fax)