A US congressional committee has passed a resolution on the Armenian 'genocide'.
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on Thursday endorsed a resolution calling for Washington’s recognition of World War I-era killings of Armenians during the last days of the Ottoman Empire as 'genocide'.
Twenty-three of the panel’s 46 members voted for the resolution and 22 voted against it while one committee member abstained.
The move may jeopardize Turkey’s ties with both the United States and Armenia.
Turkey condemned the US congressional vote and recalled its ambassador from Washington for consultations.
'We condemn this resolution accusing Turkey of a crime that it has not committed,' the Turkish Prime Minister's Office said in a written statement.
'Our ambassador to Washington Namik Tan was recalled tonight to Ankara for consultations after the development,' said the statement, which came immediately after the US panel passed the measure in a closer-than-expected vote.
In Washington, Turkish lobbying deputies pushed against the resolution until the very last moment. Speaking to Turkish television channel NTV, opposition Republican People’s Party deputy Shukru Elekdag said, 'The US administration has left Turkey alone.'
Suat Kiniklioglu of the ruling Justice and Development Party said the supporters of the measure did not expect such a close vote, claiming the outcome taught them a lesson.
The non-binding resolution now heads to a floor vote at the House of Representatives, where its prospects for passage are uncertain. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat who supports the resolution, will decide if or when it will come to a floor vote.
The resolution the committee endorsed calls on President Barack Obama to ensure that US policy formally refers to the killings as 'genocide' and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in April – something he avoided doing last year.
Earlier, Turkish President Abdullah Gul urged Obama to use his influence to block the resolution, warning that its adoption would hurt ties between the two NATO allies. 'Whatever the outcome is, Turkey will not be the loser. Others will lose from a negative outcome,' said Turkish Parliament Foreign Affairs Commission head Murat Mercan, one of a group of Turkish deputies who travelled to Washington, DC, to lobby against the resolution.
Similar 'genocide' resolutions were passed by the same committee in 2000, 2005 and 2007, but none of them reached a House floor vote because of extensive pressure from then presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
The Clinton and Bush administrations strongly opposed the previous Armenian 'genocide' resolutions, saying their congressional passage would deeply hurt US national-security interests. But the Obama administration has thus far declined to play the national-security card on this matter.
During his election campaign, Obama pledged to recognize the killings as 'genocide', but refrained from using the term in his message last year to commemorate the killings.
US diplomats in recent weeks have been urging the Turkish government to implement the reconciliation process with Armenia without any preconditions, saying that in the absence of this action, 'genocide' resolutions in Congress may be unstoppable.
The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed in October a set of agreements under which Ankara and Yerevan would set up normal diplomatic relations and reopen their land border. But the normalization process is now faltering because of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkey’s close friend and ally.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed during World War I as the Ottoman Empire fell apart. Turkey firmly rejects the 'genocide' label and argues that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in what it says was civil strife.
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