Armenians feel victory is close in US Congress

Monday, February 26, 2007
TDN

ÜMİT ENGİNSOY
WASHINGTON - Turkish Daily News

U.S. Armenians have set their sights on a pending congressional resolution calling for the recognition of World War-I era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide, and believe that, after several failed tries over the past two decades, this time victory is within reach.

"The chances of passing are the best they have been in recent years," Bryan Ardouny, a top U.S. Armenian official.

"We have a very strong bipartisan support. Over 170 members of Congress in just a few weeks have cosponsored this resolution," Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America (AAA), said in an interview with the Turkish Daily News. AAA is one of the two large organizations representing the United States' Armenian community. The resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives, Congress' lower chamber in late January, and the Armenians' biggest advantage is having Democratic congresswoman Nancy Pelosi as House speaker, following her party's landslide victory in congressional elections last November. Pelosi said before the elections that she would back the genocide measure's passage in the new Congress.

Independent analysts also agree that if a House floor vote is held, the measure has more than enough support to win approval.

The last time Armenians came very close to victory was in October 2000 when a similar resolution reached the House floor. But only hours before a planned vote, then President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, urged then House speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican, to shelve the measure on grounds of U.S. national security, and Hastert agreed.

This time, the current resolution is also highly likely to overcome initial hurdles and again reach the House floor.

President George W. Bush's Republican administration, like its predecessors, opposes the bill's passage. However, this time it is not clear if Bush would similarly call on Pelosi to stop the measure at the last minute or if Pelosi would listen to him at a time of heightened hostilities between the Republican administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

The resolution's approval would set the U.S. record right on this sensitive matter, according to Ardouny. "The Armenian genocide is an incontestable historical fact," he said, without referring to a division among world historians over whether the Armenian killings amounted to genocide. Ardouny suggested that the resolution's purpose was not to humiliate Turkey, but a confirmation of "the truth of history in the face of denial." "The issue is how we can help Turkey to come to terms with its past," he said, adding that "building a relationship on truth will improve the relations between Turkey and Armenia." But Ardouny's recounting is in full contrast with how Turkey feels.

It is not what Turkey feels it is what Turkey is made to feel by its political elite and their decedents who revised history for the sake of establishing the Turkish republic on the remnants of the Ottoman Empire.

During a visit here early this month, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül warned that the Armenian resolution's approval would poison U.S.-Turkish ties in a lasting way. Turkish diplomats also said the measure's passage would rule out any improvement in Turkish-Armenian relations in the foreseeable future. Asked if congressional approval of a genocide resolution would lead to additional demands, including compensation and even territorial claims, Ardouny said, "Right now we're focused on this resolution." Also asked if Armenia and U.S. Armenians recognize Turkey's border with Armenia, which they want to be opened for trade and passages, he said: "The border is where it is. And we think that Turkey, instead of attempting to isolate Armenia, should take positive steps and try to show good faith by opening the border."

Turkey officially recognized Armenia when the latter gained its independence from the former Soviet Union in 1991. But Ankara refuses to establish diplomatic ties with Yerevan and open the border, saying Armenia has been keeping the Nagorny-Karabakh region inside Azerbaijan and another 20 percent of Azeri territory under its occupation. Asked if a potential Turkish acceptance of Armenian President Robert Kocharian's recent proposal for the creation of a Turkish-Armenian intergovernmental commission to discuss outstanding issues could stop the pending resolution in the House of Representatives, Ardouny said the two were different matters.

"If Turkey and Armenia want to link them that's one thing. But in terms of our focus, we're looking at it (the genocide resolution) as the U.S. record," he said.

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.