"If President Obama doesn't get involved in the issue, Congress may pass the resolution this year."
Labeling a resolution that would recognize as genocide the 1915 incidents as “the most urgent issue” in Turkish-US relations, a veteran US diplomat has warned that said resolution might eventually be adopted by the US Congress if US President Barack Obama doesn't intervene to prevent this from happening.
The remarks by Morton Abramowitz, who served as US ambassador to Ankara during the first Gulf War (1989-1991), came at a meeting recently hosted by the İstanbul Center and Georgia Tech's Sam Nunn School of International Affairs in Atlanta, the Anatolia news agency reported on Sunday. Last month, Howard Berman, a congressman from California who serves as the Democratic chairman of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he intended to call a committee vote on the non-binding resolution on March 4. The resolution would call on Obama to ensure that US policy formally refers to the events as “genocide” and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in April - something Obama avoided doing last year.
Anatolia quoted Abramowitz as saying that if President Obama doesn't get involved in the issue, Congress may pass the resolution this year, giving the basic theme of his message during the meeting. Abramowitz also suggested that the ongoing tension between Israel and Turkey had sparked anger against Turkey amongst the Jewish lobby in the US, which has traditionally been pro-Turkey.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
