Decision on H.Res.106 vote may be reconsidered?

PanARMENIAN.Net - With support for the Armenian Genocide resolution rapidly eroding, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer indicated that he's reconsidering plans to bring up the measure for a floor vote.



"I want to check [the votes] before we make a determination" about floor action, the Maryland Democrat said Tuesday, stepping back from comments he made earlier that the resolution would come up for a vote by the middle of next month.



The non-binding resolution would urge the president to recognize as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the former Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago. It has drawn sharp opposition from Turkey, and the administration has warned that House adoption of the resolution would harm U.S. foreign policy efforts in the region.



7 cosponsors have recently withdrawn their support for the measure (H Res 106), which the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved, 27-21, on Oct. 10.



Also, Democrats Alcee L. Hastings of Florida, who chairs the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and John Tanner of Tennessee, who chairs the House delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to block a floor vote on the resolution.



Most Republicans oppose the measure.



Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., cosponsored the resolution but pulled his support, saying the resolution is not worth losing an ally in the Middle East. "They are the only country with a large Muslim population that has consistently been our friend," Davis said. "I want to keep them there."



Despite the Democratic splintering, a spokesman for Pelosi said Monday that the Speaker still intends to bring the resolution to the floor before the end of the session.



Pelosi has long supported genocide recognition for the Armenians, thousands of whom make up a vocal and influential community in her home district.



Jane Harman, D-Calif., who cosponsored the resolution, wrote Pelosi a letter last week urging her not to bring it up. Harman said she would not remove her name from the bill but would vote against it on the floor.



Those who pulled their support were adamant that they still believed that the Armenian murders were genocide, but thought the timing was bad.



"I would normally be anti-genocide," Sanford D. Bishop Jr., D-Ga., said. "But the issue has to do with the support of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."



Bishop also cosponsored the measure but pulled his support.



Other members who removed their names as cosponsors were Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich.; Allen Boyd, D-Fla.; Wally Herger, R-Calif.; Marion Berry, D-Ark.; Mike Ross, D-Ark.; Hank Johnson, D-Ga.; and Harry E. Mitchell, D-Ariz.



"This is not the time to stick our finger in the eyes of the Turks," Ross said.



The Bush administration and Turkish government officials, who visited several congressional offices last week, have put intense pressure on Congress not to take up the measure.



The committee vote sparked huge protests in Ankara and Istanbul and prompted Turkey's top general Monday to threaten that ties between the two nations would be forever changed if the House adopted the resolution.



The Turkish parliament also is considering a request from the military to permit military incursions against Kurdish separatists holed up in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkey has been shelling villages in northern Iraq where it believes the separatists are operating, Congressional Quarterly reports.