Event to honour U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau, Genocide Museum, Tsitsernakaberd, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 1998

The BBC reports that U.S. President George W. Bush has urged the House Foreign Affairs Committee not to pass a resolution that would recognize the mass killing and deportation of Armenians living in Ottoman Turkey as Genocide. The move comes after considerable pressure and threats from Turkey warning that U.S.-Turkish relations would be affected.

“This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings,” he said hours before a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Such a move, already taken by France’s parliament, would do “great harm” to US relations with Turkey, Mr Bush added.

[…]

Speaking before Mr Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the passing of the resolution would be “very problematic” for US policy in the Middle East.

It could, she added, destabilise US efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan because Turkey is a main hub for US military operations in the region.

According to the BBC and others, acceptance of the resolution would likely result in a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq in pursuit of guerrillas from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) currently fighting a separatist war in Turkey’s south eastern regions. It also reports that many Turks fear that if the U.S. recognizes the Genocide then Armenians in the Diaspora would pursue claims for territorial and monetary reparations.

However, the Armenian Foreign Minister, Vartan Oskanian, is quick to dispel such fears. PanArmenian.net has more.

[…] Minister Oskanian pointed to the Treaty of Kars, which regulates the border between Turkey and Armenia. “Since this treaty has never been renounced or replaced after the fall of the Soviet regime and our independence, the borders are clearly demarcated according to it. Therefore, Turkey has no reason to be concerned,” Oskanian said.

He added that since Armenia does not have such pre-conditions to start governmental dialogue, Turkey also has to withdraw its pre-condition of Armenia renouncing ‘genocide claims’ to start dialogue between the two countries.

Even so, RFE/RL reports that the U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, has also made clear her position on the resolution.

Speaking after White House talks between the two top officials and President George W. Bush, Rice said she sympathized with the plight of the Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

“But the passage of this resolution at this time would, indeed, be very problematic for everything that we’re trying to do in the Middle East because we are very dependent on a good Turkish strategic ally for this,” she said.

Turkey has already warned that passage of the resolution could force it to bar the United States from a key military base in its south, and Gates noted that about 70 percent of all US air cargo going into Iraq goes through Turkey.

Interestingly, the most comprehensive posts on the resolution this week appear to be from non-Armenians and the consensus of opinion is that Bush is wrong to yield to Turkish pressure. The Daily Kos, for example, says that Americans are better than that and considers acceptance of the resolution to be a moral issue.

In 1915, millions of Armenians were systematically murdered by the Ottoman Empire. This genocide is documented historical fact. The U.S. half-heartedly intervned, the international community was silent, and nothing significant was done to stop the slaughter. Now Bush wants to further dishoner us by pretending that the genocide never happened.

[…]

If we, as a country, truly care about human rights, then we have to be willing to speak for the dead Armenians. There has to be some point where principle trumps raw power. World leaders should know that the international community will not ignore genocide for petty political reasons. The international community should know that the U.S. is willing to risk pissing off allies not just because we want to start wars, but also to stand up for the truth and for international law.

As a country, we are so much better than this president. I urge the Senate to ignore Bush and join the rest of the world in honoring and mourning the dead Armenians.

And we should all laugh out loud the next time Bush, Cheney, Rice or any of that gang pretend to be concerned about genocide.

My Greek Odyssey is more cynical.

Now I’m all for sweeping genocide under the rug. After all it’s quite messy and a rather uncomfortable topic especially when committed by our “friends.” We have certainly done it before. It so easy to look the other way, especially in remote places like Rwanda or Darfur. Every country has some skeletons in its closet, so why get upset about the Turks? They certainly have learned their lesson. After eliminating millions of troublesome minorities like the Armenians, Assyrians, and the Greeks, they have sworn off genocide in favor of ethnic cleansing, a much more humane though less efficient approach. The only problem with ethnic cleansing is that minorities that aren’t liquidated have a tendency to be inconvenient.

The pragmatic side of American foreign policy as exemplified by Mr. Morrissey is not concerned about the past. No use crying over spilled milk, as we Americans are apt to say. Why hold modern Turkey accountable for the sins of the Ottoman Empire? Turkey has been a reliable ally. They have always been there for us haven’t they?

Unfortunately they have not. Turkey’s history is replete with frequent episodes when it has not only allied itself with our enemies but also failed miserably to support our efforts in the region. During the invasion of Iraq, Turkey refused repeated requests to allow us to open a second front. The inability to do so cost us dearly in terms of precious lives and the subsequent pacification of postwar Iraq. Turkey continues to meddle and to conduct incursions against northern Iraq, threatening to upset the tenuous stability there. When push comes to shove, Turkey has in fact been missing in action, time and time again.

I for one am looking to overlook Turkey’s history. What I am not willing to overlook is Turkey’s current abuse of religious freedom of its dwindling Christian citizens. […] I am not willing to overlook the destruction of Christian churches, the confiscation of the property of Greek , Kurdish, and Armenian citizens. I am not willing to overlook the abuse of its Kurdish minority including the wholesale destruction of entire villages. I am not willing to overlook its illegal occupation of half the island of Cyprus. These sins are not in the past. They are in the here and now. We can ignore them in return for a tenuous friendship, yet they will not go away.

One dissenting voice, however, appears to come from an Armenian-American who argues that she fails to see the point in recognizing the Genocide, especially when the U.S. is engaged militarily elsewhere. To be honest, I don’t think this is a view held by most ethnic Armenians, but it’s worth quoting if only to provide balance.

This is a hot bed of issues that simply don’t need to be addressed right now. I fail to see the use of it. Everyone with half a brain and knowledge of the incident know that there was a genocide, and there was a massacre of Ottoman Muslims during the Armenian uprising too. Let’s face it, the area is a big mess showing the Religious zealots are alive and well and religious imposition of thought continues from the past to the present day. Everything here in the name of God or Allah, whichever your preference.

So now we have a war, one that we were lied to about. We are there, and acknowledging this prior bad deed is not going to change anything, but could make things worse. I hate to agree with Bush on this one, but I do.

[…]

Leading the charge for the resolution are grass-roots groups such as the Armenian Assembly of America, with 10,000 members, a budget of $3.6 million last year. This vast fortune of money spent to “acknowledge the genocide” makes me suspicious of the nature of this resolution. Is it going to lead to reparations for Armenians?

One Armenian blog suggested that reparations be in the form of land and a port to the sea. I find this one ridiculous at this point as displacing now hundreds of thousands of Turks to give the land back to Armenians is going to be unfair to modern Turks who had nothing to do with the genocide. Are they all culpable for past deeds just solely based on their heritage, because if that’s the case, I guess I too will be moving to Armenia and owning a bit of that land. If it hadn’t been for the genocide, I would have been a rich Armenian girl today growing olive trees and making pakalava in my homeland. But instead I’m stuck here in the grand old US of A typing up a blog and listening to my Armenian relatives screech at the top of their lungs about how unfair it is that Bush won’t let House Resolution 106 pass during a horrible and ugly war in Iraq.

For most observers, however, it would appear that Bush’s resistance to the resolution is considered hypocritical and against everything the U.S. says it stands for. Or, as angryindian says on NowPublic, it’s just one of the reasons why most of the world dislikes the U.S.

If Americans are still wondering why the rest of the world isn’t keen with the U.S., here’s an example why. Right after addressing the UN on genocide in Darfur, the Bush administration is now telling the American congress not to call what happened to more than one million Armenians killed for the sole fact that they were Armenian, genocide.

I’m sure the blogosphere as well as the international media will be full of more responses and opinions tomorrow. To be honest, I’m not sure if the resolution will be accepted as I’ve heard differing opinions on the matter from activists in the Diaspora. Still, we’ll know soon enough, but even if it does make it to the floor of the U.S. Congress, the battle is presumably not yet over.

Update

Blogian reports that the resolution was accepted and posts Committee chair Tom Lantos’ opening statement.

House Resolution 106, formally recognizing the Armenian Genocide as such, passed a minute ago in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. Congress.

26 voted in favor, 21 voted against.

The full post is here.