By SEBNEM ARSU
Published: October 12, 2007
from www.nytimes.com
ISTANBUL, Oct. 11 — Turkey reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in Washington to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey that began during World War I, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war.
In uncharacteristically strong language, President Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a statement to the semi-official Anatolian News Agency, and warned that the decision could work against the United States.
“Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games,” President Gul said.
The House vote comes at a particularly inopportune time. Washington has called on Turkey to show restraint as its military mobilizes on the border with Iraq, threatening an incursion against Kurdish insurgents. On Thursday, Turkish warplanes were reported to be flying close to the border, but not crossing it.
The possibility of Turkish military intervention in Iraq against Kurdish separatists has long worried American officials for its potential to ignite a wider war. On Wednesday, the Turkish government began the process of gaining parliamentary approval to conduct cross-border operations.
The committee vote in the House, though nonbinding and largely symbolic, rebuffed an intense campaign by the White House and earlier warnings from Turkey’s government that such a vote would gravely strain relations with the United States.
In Washington, the Bush administration tried to ease the hard feelings between the countries, and vowed to try to defeat the resolution on Capitol Hill.
“One of the reasons we opposed the resolution in the House yesterday is that the president has expressed on behalf of the American people our horror at the tragedy of 1915,” said Dana Perino, President Bush’s chief spokeswoman. “But at the same time, we have national security concerns, and many of our troops and supplies go through Turkey. They are a very important ally in the war on terror, and we are going to continue to try to work with them. And we hope that the House does not put forward a full vote.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the House would definitely take up the measure. “I said if it comes out of committee, it will go to the floor,” she told reporters. “Now it has come out of committee, and it will go to the floor.”
In Turkey, there was widespread expectation that the House committee vote and any further steps would damage relations between the countries.
Turkish officials and lawmakers warned that if the resolution were approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the American war effort in Iraq, which includes permission to ship essential supplies through Turkey from a major air base at Incirlik, in southern Turkey.
Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, refused to say what effect the resolution might have on American access to the base, but he did not exclude the possibility of a policy change. “This step is contrary to the U.S. interests,” he said on Thursday, “and is an unfortunate decision taken by those who cannot acknowledge Turkey’s position.”
Already the top Turkish naval commander, Adm. Metin Atac, canceled a trip to the United States for a conference after Wednesday’s vote, an American Embassy official confirmed. Admiral Atac’s office did not specify any reasons for the cancellation.
For his part, Ross Wilson, the United States ambassador to Turkey, also tried to calm relations, issuing a statement on Thursday saying that the partnership between Turkey and the United States was strong and would remain so. He added that he, President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice regretted the committee decision.
He was nonetheless later summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Ankara, the capital, to be briefed on Turkey’s disappointment.
“We had a meeting with Mr. Wilson during which we expressed our concerns about the developments,” said a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry. “We drew attention to bad reflections on our bilateral relations and kindly requested his assistance in preventing the passage of the bill.”
The House decision prompted reaction on the streets of Ankara and Istanbul. The youth branch of the extreme-leftist Workers’ Party laid a black wreath at the United States Embassy and spray-painted the Turkish flag onto an embassy wall.
A total of 1.5 million Armenians were killed in the Armenian genocide, which began in 1915 as part of a systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey. Turks have vehemently denied the genocide designation, while acknowledging that hundreds of thousands of Armenians died. They contend that the deaths resulted from the war that ended with the creation of modern Turkey in 1923.
Identifying Armenian killings as genocide is considered an insult against Turkish identity, a crime under Article 301 of the Turkish penal code.
In an Istanbul court on Thursday, Sarkis Seropyan and Arat Dink, the brother of Hrant Dink, the newspaper editor who was killed by a 17-year-old gunman in January, received suspended jail sentences for one year for violating that law. They reprinted other newspaper accounts of Hrant Dink’s statement saying that Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Army in the 1910s, their lawyer, Fethiye Cetin, said.
Not only writers of Armenian origin, but also the Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk have been charged under the same law, although his case was dropped under heavy international pressure.
A State Department spokesman, Tom Casey, said that United States diplomats were reaching out to their Turkish counterparts to express not only their opposition to the resolution but “our commitment with Congress on this to see that the full House, in fact, votes to defeat this resolution.”
Mr. Casey said that State Department and White House officials would try to persuade “various members” of the House on how to vote.
Ms. Pelosi said that she did not have a date in mind for bringing the issue to the floor, but that it would be brought up this session, which is to end around Nov. 16. Whatever happens, she insisted, relations between the United States and Turkey will remain strong.
David Stout contributed reporting from Washington.
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