TURKEY: Anger at U.S. over Armenian genocide resolution

Turkish reactions to a proposed United States resolution that would identify the killing of Armenians by Ottoman forces in the early 20th century as genocide showed dismay and disappointment, but so far there have been no serious calls to end the strategic partnership between the two countries.

"If [the resolution] is approved, it will definitely create turmoil," Bulent Aras, a professor of international relations at Istanbul Technical University, told The Times. "But the expectation is that this is a gesture to the Armenian diaspora and will not be approved."

Turkey withdrew its ambassador to the U.S. minutes after the resolution passed committee on Thursday, although observers say the move is temporary and mostly symbolic.

At the time of this posting, it was still unknown if the resolution would make it to a vote. After publicly failing to pass a similar resolution in 2007, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would only bring it to the floor for a vote with the necessary votes to pass it guaranteed.

"Turkey and the U.S. share positions on Iraq, Afghanistan, the [Arab-Israeli] peace process, so Turkey will do nothing to hurt that, they don't have leverage on those issues, but Turkey will hold the Obama administration responsible for harming normalization between Armenia and Turkey," Aras said.

Turkey and Armenia signed two agreements last year to normalize relations by establishing diplomatic ties and opening their border, but the implementation of those agreements has suffered a number of setbacks since. 

Armenian President Serge Sarkisian has spent considerable political capital pushing for normalization, which could break down altogether in the wake of the resolution.

The congressional panel's decision has opened old, painful wounds for the Armenians and the Turks and created tension between Turkey, the U.S. and the Armenian diaspora, much of which is settled in America.

In the period just after World War I, a severely weakened Ottoman Empire attempted to consolidate its power by violently suppressing ethnic minorities, including the Armenians, who say the massacres and forced marches were a systematic attempt to exterminate them as a people. Although there is no consensus on how many Armenians were killed during this period, estimates range from 500,000 to 1.5 million.

Armenians maintain a genocide took place, but Turks feel strongly that the killings, however brutal, were motivated by a desire to crack down on political dissent and treason rather than annihilate an entire ethnic group.

Tülin Daloglu, the Washington bureau chief of the online Turkish newspaper Haberturk, described a "new climate" in Turkey in which Turks are more willing to admit that atrocities took place, but that most Turks disagree that they constituted a genocide.

"When you are talking about a genocide, it’s a serious word," Daloglu said. "What had happened in the past is something no one should deny, but when you look at it from the Turkish point of view, we have a different reading of the history," 

Prominent Armenian organizations in the U.S. have lauded the resolution and strongly criticized Turkey. The Armenian Assembly of America, a Washington-based lobbying group, said the debate “raised questions about the Turkish government’s credibility" and accused it of waging "an international campaign of denial."

-- Meris Lutz in Beirut

Photo: Protesters, holding Turkish flags, shout slogans during a demonstration in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on March 5, 2010. Credit: AFP / ADEM ALTAN

Comments

[Okan EROL]

Armenians were killing our grandfathers,grandmothers and their childrens.You USA : Where were you ,USA.They were killing our peoples.This job is historians job.But you USA please first you look your history.You killed all the redmans and their womens.Now Iraq,Afghanistan,Pakistan,Wietnam, and JAPAN and all over the world.Japan civilians was killed by atom bombs.Do u know whose bomb was.?Your history is covered by human bloods.I m Ottoman Empires grandson.And my grandfathers not killer.But your childrens will be grandsons of big killers.

[ihsan emre ışık]

I am TURK. And i am telling this words American people...If you have to see any genocide please look Iraq,vietnam and the others...

[Dr O LOVE]

Seeing as the US Congress is all hot to trot against ANY genocide, maybe next our former south eastern Native American brethern will at long last get the US government's recognition of genocide by them against the red-men, red-women and their children on "The Trail of Tears". That is only ONE "incident"! From pre-colonial days and then well after the end of the American Revolution in 1783 well up to 1890 and Wounded Knee massacre, from the Atlantic to the Pacific East to West and from the Canadian Border to the Gulf of and Mexico it's self North to South, genocide has been practiced on us. When Oh When will that be reconnized and repreations made-not that it will bring back the dead!

Clean you own back porch off first before interferring in the internal affairs of other countries Whitemen! Leave Turkey alone!!!!!!

[levon Derantz Stepanian]

Iam an armenian/american, first generation, and I wish to
refute all the negativeity that you turks are claiming. Is
your concience bothering you folks. We, the armeniam/americans have seen the proof of the pudding. Tell me, why then are you muslims destroying the armenian cemetaries, and churches there in anatolia, and the azeris in azeribijian? Our people exsisted for 3,ooo years, while your people were still living up in the stepps. The one thing I think you should do, is get the book, titled, The
Memoirs of Theodore Rosevelt, Ambassador to Ottoman Turkey,
1915 to 1917. Return our lands, all of Anatolia, move all
ethnic Turks out of villages. Villages like Havav,Ouss-nova
etc. Pay the Reparations due the decendants, then the demands will cease. So you folks get ready.

Levon Derantz Stepanian, Proud Armenian

[EKjuntion]

What will be the response of the Turkish government should it fail to win this concession from the West- resume it's role as principal opium supplier to Marseilles?

[ALandofnorain]

I'm waiting for the Congressional resolution condemning Mao for killing twenty million of his own people during the Cultural Revolution. Fat chance, eh.
As for the Armenians, I am well traveled, and the only two times I have EVER been called a "stupid American" by anyone anywhere were in Los Angeles, both times by Armenian immigrants.

[Lalig]

The truth can sometimes be very inconvenient and Turkey has nowhere else to hide, now that the truth which they have so vehemently denied is coming out. Despite Turkey's ugly threats, the United States House Foreign Relations Committee aptly demonstrated yesterday that Turkey does not get to vote in our House. When 60-Minutes aired last Sunday, I cried at this sight of all our old ancestral bones lying just beneath the surface in the hot Der Zor desert sun, where so many thousands and thousands died of disease, hunger, thirst and injury. Our Armenian blood soils the hands of the Turks. Turkey can deny the truth all it wants, but the evidence is insurmountable, 20 Nations, including 11 NATO allies, have already recognized the Genocide. Sweden will vote in September. It may take 95 years and even more years beyond that, but as a proud Armenian, I speak for our entire race when I tell you that we are a strong and resilient nation, we have the truth on our side, we have the courage of legislators who will not yield to ugly threats, and someday we will be able to have our day and the whole world will know just what the Turks did in 1915.

[John Robinson]

Turkey will not risk loosing several billion dollars in military aid and access to advanced US technology. Turkey is one of the partners in the F-35 development program and it has invested a large amount of money to have access to the premier US stealth fighter . Turkey wants to be the only Muslim country to have access to this technology so that it can bully the world. In the future, you can be sure that Turkey will be an adversary of the United States and will attempt to control the oil in the middle east.
Furthermore the persecution of Christians in Turkey has been hidden from the American public for too long.The Armenian Genocide was the first anti-Christian jihad of the 20th century as 9/11 was the first anti-Christian Jihad of the 21st century.The Islamfacist beliefs of the Turkish government are what led to the Armenian genocide.Furthermore Modern Turkey mercilessly persecutes human rights activists, leftists and Kurds who have been killed in large numbers. Turkey is also a key supporter and ally of the Sudanese war criminals committing the Darfur Genocide.

[Jack V.]

Why does the Turkish lobby spend so much time and money to defend themseleves against something that they say did not happen. The Turks do not want to pay any reparations for their ancestors crimes aganist humanity.
I will never forget the horror stories my great grandmother would tell me of what she witnessed as a child how women and children were raped in front of their parents and how they killed her brother in front of her eyes, these people were living on their ethnic homeland and were Turkish/Ottoman citizens they were not fighting aganist Turkey in a war they were murdered and it was planned what happened to the population of almost 2 million people who were living on those lands. Turks always say Turks died too it was a civil war liars and cowards , let them threaten America...they did the same to Italy and to France but they still have relations with them. Stop playing poltics with human rights cowards.

[allen mert]

Dear All Armenian brothers,sisters ; please be objective about this issue. There was NOT a genocide to armenian people. Please read more and learn the exact truths about your history. I add a link which is posten in MIT , please read it and analyze other objective sources also. Thank you

[Angela]

If the Turks think killing infants, small children,as well as women and the elderly was right I gues they can say it was just fine. To most human beings the notion of marching toddlers across the desert till they died is inexcusable no matter what the reason. They killed people becaus of who they were not because of their political beliefs, after all what sort of political beliefs do small children have? Sounds like genocide to me.

It is just so bad that it took so long for the US to grow a spine. There is right and there is wrong. The Turks admit bad things happened but they don't think it rose to the level of genocide. I really don't care what those who sympathise with mass murderers think.

[kelsa]

Many are wondering why Turkey gets so emotional every time this resolution comes to a vote. The answer is because they feel so strongly that they did not commit genocide. How would you feel if someone falsely accused you of rape?

Do you blame them? Who are we to pass judgement on others history? Who are we to accuse others of having committed genocide? Have we come to terms with our own misdeeds? We practically eradicated the Native American population. We dropped not one but two atomic bombs on a civilian population killing 400,000 Japanese in two days. What right or moral authority do we have to pass judgement on anyone else?

It seems every year we bring up the Armenian genocide resolution to a vote. Every year the Turks threaten all sorts of things and every year our president has to beg congress not to bring this to a vote.

There is a sure way to avoid this. We need to determine what is more important to us, our current strategic interests or passing judgement on anothers history from a hundred years ago. The Turks can help us decide this. They should pass legislation in their parliament to the effect that the country is barred from any military cooperation with any country that recognizes the Armenian Genocide. This will ensure that our congressman no longer waste time on this resolution. They won't have to second guess will Turkey follow up on its threats. They will have their question answered before even asking.

Why are we wasting so much time on this issue, year after year? We have a soaring budget defecit. There are millions without a job and on the verge of ruin. China is beating us in in commerce today and are projected to overtake us in every category in the next two decades. Is it any surprise when our legislators believe this meaningless resolution is the best way to spend their time. If they were CEOs they would all be fired.

Stop this nonsense and start working towards fixing our country. We have real problems that need fixing.

[JStreet]

while genocide is ugly, but the issue here is not about Armenians and the Turks. This issue showed that the US congress is a little puppet for he Israeli lobby. The turkish-israeli relation is at its lowest especially after Gaza war where turkey was sympathetic with the suffering of Palestinians, so Israel now used its influence the Israeli lobby to punish turkey for its stands on Gaza and its attempts to end the blockade on Gaza and suddenly the Armenian issue rise to the surface in israeli (i mean the US) congress

[Joe]

Revenge of AIPAC! Turkey have one card which can defeat pro Israel lobby in US, NATO, a simple hint of withdraw from NATO will force US policy makers to chose between US interests or choosing pro Israel interest of putting Turkey on notice in regard with her tough stance toward Israel, US interest in NATO structure integrity supersedes her passive tolerance for Israel manipulation of US congress!

[Congressman Jim Costa, United States House of Representatives]

Rep. Costa Praises Approval of Armenian Genocide Resolution by Foreign Affairs Committee

WASHINGTON - Congressman Jim Costa (D-Fresno) released the following statement today after H. Res. 252, a House resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide was approved by the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Approval by the Committee is a key step towards the resolution being considered by the full House of Representatives.

"As we approach the 95th anniversary of the start of the Armenian Genocide, I am pleased that members of the Foreign Affairs Committee came together to approve this resolution," Costa said. "Established history shows that between 1915 and 1923 the Ottoman Empire systematically killed an estimated 1.5 million Armenians and drove hundreds of thousands of others into exile from their ancestral homeland. The Armenian Genocide created a framework for genocide, as similar atrocities continued to occur throughout the 20th century in the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur."

Along with 42 U.S. States, the Armenian Genocide has been officially recognized by more than 20 nations, including 11 NATO allies. As Senators, President Obama, Vice President Biden, and Secretary of State Clinton recognized the Armenian Genocide and called upon Congress to adopt the Armenian Genocide Resolution.

"We simply cannot continue our policy of denial regarding the Armenian Genocide," Costa said. "Silence on this issue runs contrary to our nation's values and record on human rights. Genocide must never be glossed over and forgotten. As the President has said, the Armenian Genocide is not an allegation, an opinion, or a point of view, but rather a fact supported by an undeniable body of evidence."

Similar resolutions recognizing the Armenian Genocide have passed the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2000, 2005, and 2007. Throughout his career, Congressman Costa has been a strong supporter and advocate for the Armenian community in the San Joaquin Valley and around the world.

Costa added, "World leaders, especially the United States, must recognize this genocide and condemn any genocide around the world. I will work to bring this resolution before the full House for a vote. Congress must adopt this resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide so we can truly say 'never again.'"

The integrity of this e-mail can be verified, by contacting CongressmanJimCosta@mail.house.gov.

[Dr. Susie Kalinian]

Congratulations to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, for passing this resolution. Hopefully it will pass the full house as well, and send a strong message to Turkey, that the US will not tolerate Genocide Deniers and History Revisionists. Many uninformed commentators ask 'what is the need for such a resolution, why now, why the Armenians?' We do not need to pass resolutions for the victims of Stalin, Mao, Amin, Hitler, etc, because those countries do not deny their past leaders barbaric acts against humanity. Unbelievably the Turkish Government, for the past 95 years, has chosen to deny the historical fact of the 1915-1923 Armenian Genocide perpetrated by its Ottoman Turks, slaughtering over 1.5 million Armenians. This is a slap in the face to all humanity, and especially all Armenians. Countless world governments have passed similar resolutions acknowledging what is widely considered the 1st genocide of the 20th Century, as have 42 of our United States. Not to mention countless eyewitness accounts, including the US Ambassador to Turkey, Henry Morgenthau, international and national government documents, and every United Nations since. The blood of my grandparents, great grandparents, and an entire people still runs red, and their memory will not be forgotten. Genocide deniers and governments of genocide deniers, are perpetrators of future genocides. It is only when a country admits to its own inhumanity to man and apologizes for its past history, can it be respected in the present and in the future. Only by finally admitting to the 1915 Armenian Genocide, perpetrated by a PREVIOUS government, can present day Turkey DISTANCE itself from the barbaric acts committed by THAT government, and earn the respect of its present day people, and begin to earn the respect of other countries. Otherwise it is no better than the barbaric government that committed those acts, and will never be able to call itself a civilized nation, and expect to be treated as one. Respectfully, Dr. Kalinian