U.S. not to punish Turkey through Armenian Genocide recognition

June 12, 2010 - 16:59 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. is not going to punish Turkey for the incident with Freedom Flotilla through the Armenian Genocide recognition. “I don’t think we should be mixing up issues that don’t have anything to do with each other. We have a wide-ranging relationship with Turkey. We’ll be taking each issue appropriately, one at a time,” U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs Philip Gordon said in an interview to BBC.

He went on saying: “The overall relationship is inevitably affected by the way the countries see each other. That’s why we’re careful about that. We want to preserve a favorable image of Turkey in the United States.”

“Turkey and the United States have never been without their differences, and we have some important differences now, but we also have a lot in common that we’re working together on,” concluded Gordon.

On June 11, Spokesman for the U.S. Department of State Philip Crowley said the U.S. is open to and discussing with Israel potential ways in which the international community can participate in the flotilla investigation.

PanARMENIAN.Net learned from its sources in Washington that currently the Armenian and Jewish lobbies are negotiating on advancement of the Armenian Genocide Resolution (H. Res. 252.) The Jewish lobby had been frustrating the resolution adoption due to friendly relations with Turkey. However, those congressmen, who had been supporting Turkey, today are revising their stance.

It is also noteworthy that the Israeli-Turkish friendship group has almost frozen its activity in Israeli Knesset.

The Armenian Genocide resolution

The resolution affirming the U.S. record on the Armenian Genocide (H.Res.252) was formally introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Reps. Adam Schiff (D.-CA), George Radanovich (R.-CA), Frank Pallone, Jr. (D.-NJ), and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill). On March 4, 2010 it was adopted with a 22-21 vote by the House Committee on Foreign Relations. A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate.

The Armenian Genocide

The Armenian Genocide (1915-23) was the deliberate and systematic destruction of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire during and just after World War I. It was characterized by massacres and deportations, involving forced marches under conditions designed to lead to the death of the deportees, with the total number of deaths reaching 1.5 million.

The majority of Armenian Diaspora communities were formed by the Genocide survivors.

Present-day Turkey denies the fact of the Armenian Genocide, justifying the atrocities as “deportation to secure Armenians”. Only a few Turkish intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk and scholar Taner Akcam, speak openly about the necessity to recognize this crime against humanity.

The Armenian Genocide was recognized by Uruguay, Russia, France, Lithuania, Italy, 45 U.S. states, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, Argentina, Belgium, Austria, Wales, Switzerland, Canada, Poland, Venezuela, Chile, Bolivia, the Vatican, Luxembourg, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Sweden, Venezuela, Slovakia, Syria, Vatican, as well as the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches.