YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–Official Yerevan dismissed on Tuesday Turkish warnings that a U.S. congressional resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide would set back the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations.
It also emerged that a group of Armenian parliamentarians is heading to Washington in an apparent effort to facilitate the passage of the resolution introduced by U.S. legislators a year ago.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to discuss and vote on the proposed legislation on Thursday. It urges President Barack Obama to “accurately characterize the systematic and deliberate annihilation of 1,500,000 Armenians as genocide.”
The Turkish Foreign Ministry warned on Monday that its approval by the House committee would harm not only harm U.S.-Turkish relations but also efforts by Turkey and Armenia to normalize bilateral ties. “We would like to believe that the members of the committee are aware of the damage… the endorsement of the resolution will bring
and, in this context, act responsibly,” the ministry said in a statement.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly issued a similar warning over the weekend. He said passage of the genocide resolution would bring the U.S.-backed Turkish-Armenian normalization process to a halt.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian brushed aside the warning, saying that the biggest threat to that process emanates from Ankara’s “preconditions” for the implementation of the Turkish-Armenian normalization agreements that were set months before the House panel scheduled a debate on the resolution.
“It is statements made in Turkey and the return to the language of preconditions that deal a blow to the process of normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations,” Nalbandian told a news conference. “We hope that Turkey will rid itself of artificial complexes created by the Turkish side and that we will be able to move forward in accordance with our understandings.”
Nalbandian stopped short of explicitly urging U.S. lawmakers to recognize what many historians consider the first genocide of the 20th century. But in a sign of Yerevan’s tacit support for the resolution, four members of Armenia’s parliament will fly to Washington on Wednesday at the invitation of Frank Pallone and Mark Kirk, the two U.S. lawmakers co-chairing the congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues. The bipartisan group, currently numbering 150 House members, has long been pushing for Armenian genocide recognition.
A source in the National Assembly told RFE/RL’s Armenian service that Pallone and Kirk asked their Armenian colleagues to “present their views on and approaches to issues of mutual interest” to U.S. legislators and foreign policy-makers. The genocide resolution will be the main focus of their meetings in Washington, said the source.
A similar delegation of Turkish parliamentarians is already in Washington, meeting with U.S. officials and lobbying against the resolution. “My impression is that the (Obama) administration is not fighting against it very effectively,” one of them, Sukru Elekdag, said on Monday, according to Reuters.
Obama has so far declined to openly endorse or, as past U.S. administrations did, oppose the measure. The Associated Press cited aides to senior Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee as saying last week there has been no pressure against the resolution from the White House yet. According to a spokesman for committee chairman, Howard Berman, the Obama administration was informed about Thursday’s vote ahead of time.
Obama repeatedly pledged to recognize the Armenian genocide when he ran for president, earning the overwhelming backing of the Armenian Americans. However, he has refrained from using the word “genocide” since taking office, implicitly citing the need not to undermine the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
“His view of that history has not changed,” US National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said last week. “Our interest remains the achievement of a full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts.”
“The best way to advance that goal is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address the facts of the past as a part of their ongoing efforts to normalize relations,” said Hammer. “We will continue to support these efforts vigorously in the months ahead.”
Some observers have speculated that Washington is using the prospect of U.S. recognition of the genocide to try to get the Turks to ratify the two Turkish-Armenian protocols signed in October. The Turkish ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan, seemed to give weight to this view on Saturday.
“The greatest lobbyist in Washington is the administration,” Tan said, according to the Associated Press. “We have not seen them around enough on this.”
Turks should be shitting their pants instead of issuing warnings……who is Turkey to warn or threaten the American government???
The truth of Armenian Genocide, is their nightmare, threatening others, is their strength, and their double standard policy, is Turkish way of life.. recognition of Genocide by UK and US, a matter of time.
the deceitful turks with their games of brinkmanship are simply in no position to blackmail the US on anything they are survive because of US and European largess.
How lovely! First, Nalbandian puts his signature under the defeatist protocols that, among other preconditions, contain the creation of a historical commission on genocide, and now he accuses the Turks of “returning to the language of preconditions that deal a blow to the process of normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations.” Well, he shouldn’t have signed the capitulating protocols with preconditions in the first place… On the other hand, how could he refuse the order from his buddies at the Russian Army intelligence agency where he serves being Armenia’s foreign minister?