IHT : Bush urges Congress to reject Armenian genocide resolution

Bush urges Congress to reject Armenian genocide resolution

By Brian Knowlton | October 10, 2007

WASHINGTON: President George W. Bush and two top cabinet members urged lawmakers on Wednesday to reject a resolution describing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians early in the last century as genocide - a highly sensitive issue at a time of rising U.S.-Turkish tensions over northern Iraq.

"We all deeply regret the tragic suffering of the Armenian people that began in 1915," Bush said in a brief statement from the White House. "But this resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to relations with a key ally in NATO, and to the war on terror."

He spoke hours before the House Foreign Affairs Committee was to vote on the resolution. The House speaker, Representative Nancy Pelosi, is said to be prepared to forward the matter to the full House, where more than half the 435 members are co-sponsors.

Passage would be symbolic - but the symbolism, the administration asserts, could seriously jeopardize the delicate relationship with Turkey.

Turkey has been a vital way-station for fuel and materiel shipments to U.S. forces in Iraq, and the administration has spared little effort to lobby against the resolution. The State Department secured the signatures of the eight living former secretaries of state on a letter opposing the resolution. And both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have been speaking out against it for months.

Earlier, the Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, wrote to Bush to thank him for his efforts opposing the resolution and to draw "attention to the problems it would create in bilateral relations if it is accepted," according to a statement from Gul's office.

Adding to the tensions are the recent Turkish preparations for a possible invasion of northern Iraq in an effort to stop lethal incursions by armed Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

The United States strongly opposes such Turkish action, fearing troubles in what has been the most stable part of Iraq. But the Turkish government is under heavy public pressure to act, and officials in Ankara have warned that passage of the genocide resolution would make it harder for the government to resist such pressure.

Turkey has acknowledged Armenian deaths over a period of several years beginning in 1915, as the Ottoman Republic was falling apart, but it vehemently rejects any effort to classify them as genocide. It says that many Turks also were killed at the time.

Turkey has shown its willingness to react sharply to criticism on the Armenian issue. When the French legislature called for criminal charges against those who deny that a genocide occurred, the Turkish military cut contacts with the French military and canceled some defense contracts under negotiation.

When the resolution seemed likely to reach a vote last spring, Rice and Gates joined in a strongly worded letter to Pelosi warning against passage. They repeated their arguments Wednesday.

"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.

The bulk of U.S. air cargo and about one-third of the fuel headed for Iraq passes through Turkey, Gates said, including nearly all the newly purchased mine-resistant vehicles.

"Access to air fields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we believe they will," Gates said.

The debate has left the administration in a difficult position, and officials have gone out of their way to emphasize that they are not defending what happened. "The president recognizes annually the horrendous suffering that ethnic Armenians endured during the final years of the Ottoman Empire," Rice and Gates wrote in their March 7 letter.

Armenian-American groups have been rallying support for the resolution. The Armenian National Committee of America e-mailed members Wednesday to urge them to watch the Foreign Affairs Committee session on-line and phone the offices of any "traditionally friendly member of the committee" who is not in attendance.

On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to U.S. missions in Turkey to protest the bill, The Associated Press reported. And in Ankara, leftist protesters chanted anti-American slogans in front of the embassy, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.