The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted narrowly [23-22] on Thursday to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians early in the last century, defying a last-minute plea from the Obama administration to forgo a vote that seemed sure to offend Turkey and jeopardize delicate efforts at Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.Bush convinced the leadership in 2007 not to let it come to a floor vote, when it passed before, so it remains to be seen what happens this time. Turkey immediately started the blackmail ball rolling by recalling its ambassador to the US.
This resolution, which would label the Armenian genocide as such, always faces resistance from the powerful Turkish lobby (the US has been a longtime military partner with Turkey, which is a NATO member) and from the Anti-Defamation League and the Israel lobby out of a ridiculous and selfish that claim that identifying the 1915-1918 events - the massacre of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in the crumbling Ottoman Empire - as genocide will somehow diminish the significance of the Holocaust. The Obama Administration is currently claiming that this move will jeopardize recent progress in Turkish-Armenian relations. This is an unfortunate change of heart from his previous boldness on the issue (he also used to call it a genocide as Senator).
Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA-28) noted that despite the importance of US-Turkish alliance, “nothing justifies Turkey’s turning a blind eye to the reality of the Armenian genocide. He also said, “The Turks say passing this resolution could have terrible consequences for our bilateral relationship, but I believe that Turkey values its relations with the United States at least as much as we value our relations with Turkey.” I think that's a good perspective. Turkey needs to grow up and accept their past. For them to have successfully imposed their legal system's gag rule on this issue onto the US government for so long is outrageous.
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