American Coverage
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2010/03/turkey-recalls-envoy-after-house-vote-on-armenian-genocide/1
Turkish Coverage
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=same-genocide-movie-playing-in-theaters-again-2010-03-0
The U.S Senate Foreign Relations Committee passed a resolution today on the events of 1915. The strongly worded resolution among other things commanded that the President of the United States (POTUS) refer to the events of 1915 as a "genocide." The vote was razor close (23-22).
Current President Barrack Obama used the term "genocide" as recently as January 2008. Since assuming office Obama, like Bush and Clinton has avoided using the term. The vote is likely to spark more anti-Americanism in Turkey where opinions of the U.S are already quite low.
The vote is a replay of the events of 2007 when a similar resolution was passed in committee and never made it to the floor. Turkey recalled its ambassador immediately after the vote. The passing of this resolution is serious set-back for U.S-Turkey relations. Clearly the high-water mark in U.S Turkish relations was the 1991 Gulf War when both nations worked together against Saddam. Following these events, Turkish-American relations were in a long decline before the events of today.
The Committee vote will despite being in the "Foreign " Relations committee has far more to do with domestic concerns than foreign ones. The vote will set up a further round of competition between the powerful lobby of Armenian-Americans who are well organized vs. a far less well organized group of Big Defense interests who have ties to Turkey.
Either way the timing could not have been worse for the U.S and the risk involved is high.
No comments:
Post a Comment