House Panel Says Deaths of Armenians Were Genocide

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By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON — The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted narrowly on Thursday to condemn as genocide the mass killings of Armenians early in the last century, defying a last-minute plea from the Obama administration to forgo a vote that seemed sure to offend Turkey and jeopardize delicate efforts at Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.

The vote on the nonbinding resolution, a perennial point of friction addressing a dark, century-old chapter of Turkish history, was 23 to 22. A similar resolution passed by a slightly wider margin in 2007, but the Bush administration, fearful of losing Turkish cooperation over Iraq, lobbied forcefully to keep it from reaching the House floor. Whether this resolution will reach a floor vote remains unclear.

In Ankara, the office of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan immediately issued a sharp rebuke. “We condemn this bill that denounces the Turkish nation of a crime that it has not committed,” the statement said. Ambassador Namik Tan, who had only weeks ago taken up his post in Washington, has been recalled to Ankara, the capital, for consultations, according to the statement.

Historians say that as many as 1.5 million Armenians died amid the chaos and unrest surrounding World War I and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey denies, however, that this was a planned genocide, and had mounted a vigorous lobbying campaign against the resolution.

A White House spokesman, Mike Hammer, said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had told Representative Howard L. Berman, the committee chairman, late Wednesday that a vote would be harmful, jeopardizing Turkish-Armenian reconciliation efforts that last year yielded two protocols aimed at a thawing of relations.

President Obama spoke to President Abdullah Gul of Turkey on Wednesday to endorse the efforts at normalization with Armenia, said Philip J. Crowley, a State Department spokesman.

“We’ve pressed hard to see the progress that we’ve seen to date, and we certainly do not want to see that jeopardized,” he said.

The timing of the administration’s plea seemed to catch some committee members by surprise. Early in the meeting on Thursday, the ranking Republican member, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, said that the administration had taken no position on the vote. But several minutes later she requested time to correct herself: an aide had handed her an news article describing the administration’s newly announced opposition.

Suat Kiniklioglu, a member of Turkey’s Parliament who was in Washington to meet with lawmakers, said later that he thought the intervention by Mrs. Clinton — who was asked about the resolution last week before the same House committee, but did not condemn it explicitly — had come too late.

“It was done in a fashion to be able to allow this administration to say in future, when things go wrong, that they did intervene” in support of Turkey, he said.

Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of America, also said he doubted Mrs. Clinton’s intervention had changed much. “It was closer than anticipated,” he said of the vote, “but at the end of the day the truth prevailed and the members made a very affirmative statement in the face of the opposition.”

Committee members were clearly torn between what they said was a moral obligation to condemn one of the darkest periods of the last century and the need to protect a relationship with Turkey, a NATO partner vital to American regional and security interests on issues from Afghanistan to Iran.

“This is not one of those issues that members of Congress look forward to voting on,” said Representative Gary L. Ackerman, Democrat of New York.

Like nearly every member, Mr. Berman saluted Turkey as an important ally. “Be that as it may,” he added, “nothing justifies Turkey’s turning a blind eye to the reality of the Armenian genocide.”

“The Turks say passing this resolution could have terrible consequences for our bilateral relationship,” Mr. Berman said. “But I believe that Turkey values its relations with the United States at least as much as we value our relations with Turkey.”

While still in the Senate, Mr. Obama had described the killings of Armenians at Ottoman hands as genocide. Mrs. Clinton, also then a senator, had taken a similar stance.

Last year, she strongly supported talks that led to two protocols between Turkey and Armenia calling for closer ties, open borders and the creation of a commission to examine the historical evidence in dispute.

Those accords, not yet ratified by either nation’s parliament, could now be endangered, opponents of the resolution said. “This is a fragile process that destabilizes the protocols,” said Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana.

In Istanbul, Ozdem Sanberk of Global Political Trends Center at Istanbul Kultur University, agreed that the protocols would suffer. “With this result,” he said, “the effectiveness of the ethnic lobbies got maximized and American foreign policy got hurt.”

Sebnem Arsu contributed reporting from Istanbul.

VOA News - After Accord Signing, Turkey Presses Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh

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Turkey's prime minister says Armenia needs to withdraw its troops from a breakway enclave in Azerbaijan before Turkey will open its border with Armenia.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan linked the issues Sunday, one day after Turkey and Armenia signed an agreement to normalize relations after a century of hostility.

In Ankara, Mr. Erdogan said an Armenian troop pullout from Nagorno-Karabakh would ease the way for Turkey's parliament to ratify the deal on normalizing relations. Before the agreement can take effect, it must be ratified by the parliaments of both Turkey and Armenia.

Turkey shut its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan, which was fighting to keep control of the Armenian-majority enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Broader differences between Turkey and Armenia stem from the mass killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces during and after World War One.

The chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, Sunday welcomed the Turkey-Armenia accord signed Saturday. He commended the effort and political will that leaders of the two countries have invested to overcome differences.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spent several hours Saturday working to resolve a last-minute dispute over statements to be made at the signing ceremony in the Swiss city of Zurich. In the end, neither Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian nor his Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, spoke after signing the protocols to establish diplomatic ties and to reopen the border.

There is strong opposition to the deal in both countries.

Armenians want the massacres between 1915 and 1923 recognized as genocide, and many countries have done so. Turkey strongly rejects the genocide claim. It says the Armenian death toll is inflated and that many Turks also were killed during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The agreement calls for a joint commission of independent historians to examine the genocide question. Some experts say the commission would be a concession to Turkey as it would revisit an issue Armenia says has already been confirmed.

Armenia, Turkey Reach Accord - washingtonpost.com

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Swiss Broker New Diplomatic Ties

By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 11, 2009

ZURICH, Switzerland, Oct. 10 -- Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark agreement Saturday to establish diplomatic ties, after a dramatic last-minute intervention by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to keep the event from falling apart.

The accord, aimed at ending a century of hostility stemming from Ottoman Era massacres, was brokered by the Swiss over the past two years, with the help of French, Russian and U.S. officials. Clinton had been in frequent contact with the two sides in recent months to help seal the deal.

But just as she arrived at the University of Zurich for the signing at about 5 p.m. Saturday, Clinton heard that the Armenian side was objecting to a Turkish statement prepared for the ceremony, officials said. Clinton's motorcade made a U-turn and raced back to the hotel, where a U.S. diplomat was talking to the Armenians.

In the hotel parking lot, Clinton sat in her black BMW sedan in a soft rain for about an hour, talking on one phone to the Armenian foreign minister and on another to the Turkish foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu. Finally, she went into the hotel to invite the Armenian foreign minister, Edward Nalbandian, to drive with her to the university, where his Turkish counterpart was waiting.

Once there, further hours of negotiating ensued with a broader group of international diplomats, including Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, before the documents were signed. In an apparent compromise, neither the Turks nor the Armenians made a statement at the ceremony.

The drama was a sign of the enduring suspicion between the two countries and of the difficulties that could lie ahead as their parliaments decide whether to ratify them.

Muslim Turkey and Christian Armenia have had bitter relations since a wave of bloodshed starting in 1915 left hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians dead.

Many historians call the killings genocide, but Turkey strongly rejects that label, saying people died in forced relocations and fighting.

If ratified, the accord could have implications well beyond Turkey and Armenia. It may ease tensions in other parts of southeastern Europe and provide new opportunities for oil pipelines to the West, U.S. officials said.

Clinton said that as the hours of negotiations ticked on, she repeatedly urged the participants to look at the bigger picture.

"There were several times when I said to all of the parties involved, that 'This is too important. This has to be seen through. You've gone too far. All of the work that has gone into the protocols should not be walked away from,' " she told reporters traveling with her.

The Armenian-Turkish dispute has echoed far beyond the region, prompting battles in Washington between the White House and lawmakers pushing to recognize the killings as genocide.

Both Republican and Democratic presidents have resisted such resolutions, worried that they would damage U.S. relations with Turkey, a NATO member that has provided critical support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The two protocols signed Saturday would establish diplomatic relations, open the border between Turkey and Armenia that was closed in 1993 and establish committees to work on economic affairs, the environment and other bilateral issues.

The protocols do not explicitly mention the genocide controversy, which would go to a committee of historical experts for study.

Clinton declined to characterize the last-minute objections to the statements planned for the signing ceremony.

The rapprochement between the countries is so sensitive that officials were unsure until almost the last minute whether the Armenians would even show up in Zurich for the ceremony.

Clinton did not add the stop to her official itinerary until Thursday. A day earlier, Obama called Armenian President Serge Sarkisian to "commend him for his courageous leadership" on the issue, according to a White House statement -- yet another gentle push.

Clinton has made 29 calls to the parties involved this year in her efforts to promote a settlement.

The Armenian president has faced angry protests in his own country and from Armenian communities in France and Lebanon over the plan to normalize relations.

The politically powerful Armenian-American community, which Obama courted during his campaign, appeared split over Saturday's accord.

"If Turkey normalizes relations with Armenia and ends its blockade of that landlocked country, it would be a very positive step for the region," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a leading supporter of Armenian genocide resolutions in Congress, in a statement.

He added, however, "Turkey must not be allowed to rewrite the history of the Armenian Genocide as a price of diplomatic relations."

The Armenian National Committee of America blasted the accord, saying, "The Obama administration's attempts to force Armenia into one-sided concessions is short-sighted and will, in the long term, create more problems than it serves."

In pursuing the accord, Turkey won a commitment from Washington to step up its efforts to settle the dispute over the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in the Azerbaijan, officials said. Azerbaijan is an ally of Turkey's.

About 30,000 people have been killed in fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey Sidesteps Obstacle to Armenia Pact - WSJ.com

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By MARC CHAMPION in Istanbul and NICHOLAS BIRCH in Kars, Turkey

Turkey has dropped a key condition to signing an agreement Saturday that would reopen its border with Armenia and establish diplomatic relations between the two nations, which have been divided for generations by a dispute over genocide.

"The agreement will be signed on Oct. 10," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told The Wall Street Journal -- provided, he said, that Armenia doesn't ask for changes to the text.

Supporters of the pact -- which include the U.S. and the European Union -- say they hope the change could trigger a virtuous cycle, opening up and stabilizing a region that is increasingly important for oil and gas transit and last year saw a war between Russia and Georgia.

But in Kars, the Turkish city closest to the Armenian border, skeptics point to a concrete monument to unity between the two peoples to show why an embrace between neighbors is far from certain.

The statue of two 100-foot tall human figures, standing face to face on a hill above the city, is incomplete: A giant hand that would join the figures was never attached.

It lies abandoned on the gravel below.

The monument, built last year, is now under threat of destruction.

"Small-minded people blocked the monument and they will block the peace process too," says Naif Alibeyoglu, who had the statue built when he was mayor of Kars. His 10 years in office ended in March. "You wait and see, [the deal] will end up like my statue: a statue without hands."

Supporters of the agreement, however, have sidestepped a significant hurdle: Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan said in an interview Sunday that the signing wasn't dependent on progress at talks this week between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan over their territorial conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

It was because of Armenia's effective occupation of the ethnic Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan that Turkey closed the border in 1993.

An earlier attempt to sign the protocol in April stalled when Mr. Erdogan said it could go forward only after the Karabakh conflict was resolved.

The parliaments of Armenia and Turkey need to ratify the protocol for it to take force, something Mr. Erdogan said he couldn't guarantee, as parliamentarians in Ankara would have a free vote in a secret ballot.

Mr. Erdogan also said the two processes -- a resolution of the Karabakh conflict and rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia -- remain linked, and that a positive outcome at this week's talks, to be held in Moldova, would help overall.

Turkish officials have continued to indicate that the border could take longer to open than the three months set out in the three-page protocol.

The Turkish leader said the only obstacle to signing the deal Saturday would come if Armenia seeks to alter the text.

"This is perhaps the most important point -- that Armenia should not allow its policies to be taken hostage by the Armenian diaspora," Mr. Erdogan said. Much of Armenia's large diaspora opposes the protocol.

A spokesman for Armenian President Serge Sarkisian declined to comment on whether Armenia would seek changes to the protocol.

He said the government would soon make a statement on "steps" concerning the protocol.

Mr. Sarkisian has spent the week on a multination tour to explain his position to diaspora groups, some of which have protested the pact.

Opponents say it will be used by Turkey to reduce international pressure on it to recognize as genocide the 1915 slaughter of up to 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in what was then the Ottoman Empire.

The protocol would recognize the current frontier between Turkey and Armenia, and would set up a joint commission to review issues of history, likely to include the 1915 massacres. Turkey says they were collateral deaths during what amounted to civil war during World War I.

Mr. Alibeyoglu, the former Kars mayor, worked hard to improve relations between his city -- a former Armenian capital that changed hands and populations several times over centuries -- and its natural hinterland, the Caucasus.

He invited Armenian, Azeri and Georgian artists to festivals, signed sister-city agreements with cities across the region and, in 2004, gathered 50,000 signatures for a petition demanding the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border.

Kars would stand to benefit from the ability to trade across a border 25 miles away by train and truck.

But some 20% of the city's population are ethnic Azerbaijanis, who consider opening the border while Armenia remains in control of a fifth of Azerbaijan's territory a betrayal.

Sculptor Mehmet Aksoy says he abandoned his plan to run water down the statues to pool as tears, because nationalists complained these would be tears of Armenian rejoicing at reclaiming territory.

Indeed, one complaint of nationalist opponents of the protocol in Armenia is that the treaty's recognition of current borders would prevent any future claim to the swathe of Eastern Turkey that Armenia won in a 1920 treaty, only to lose it again in the 1921 Treaty of Kars between Russia and Turkey.

"Why is one figure standing with its head bowed, as if ashamed?" asks Oktay Aktas, an ethnic Azeri and local head of the Nationalist Action Party, or MHP, who wants the statue torn down. "Turkey has nothing to be ashamed of."

In fact, the two figures stand ramrod straight.

On the other side of the border, Armenian nationalists have taken to the streets to protest the pact with Turkey.

Turkey and Armenia are "like two neighbors who do not know each other," says Mr. Alibeyoglu, who in 2004 organized a petition to open the border. "Is he a terrorist? A mafioso? We needed to break the ice."

Nationalists applied to Turkey's Commission for Monuments to get construction of the monument stopped, on the basis that a viewing platform was built without permission.

In November, the commission ordered that it be demolished.

The monument's fate awaits a decision from the central government in Ankara.

Turkey and Armenia to Establish Diplomatic Ties - NYTimes.com

By SEBNEM ARSU

ISTANBUL — Turkey and Armenia, whose century of hostilities constitutes one of the world’s most enduring and acrimonious international rivalries, have agreed to establish diplomatic relations, the two countries announced Monday.

In a breakthrough that came after a year of tiny steps across a still-sealed border and furtive bilateral talks in Switzerland, the foreign ministries of the two countries said that they would begin talks aimed at producing a formal agreement.

The joint statement said they had agreed “to start political negotiations” but did not touch on when or how some of their more intractable disputes would be addressed, starting with the killing of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Turk government from 1915 to 1918, which the Turkish government has denied was genocide.

The two countries have never had diplomatic relations, and their border has been closed since 1993, when Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, went to war over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the border, soldiers of Turkey, a NATO country, face Russian ones, called in by Armenia, across a mini-Iron Curtain.

Turkey supported Azerbaijan in the dispute, but Russia’s military action in Georgia last year shifted the security calculus in the region. After the war in Georgia, Turkey sought to improve ties with its neighbors in the Caucasus, and Armenia elected a new government interested in reciprocating.

Both countries hope an eventual opening of the border will benefit their struggling economies. Currently, there are limited charter flights between the countries but no real trade.

For Turkey, better relations with Armenia could improve its chances for admission to the European Union, where the genocide issue remains one of the main obstacles, and remove a bone of contention over the same issue with the United States, which has a large Armenian community.

The Swiss-mediated talks began last year, keeping a low profile to avoid exciting nationalist antagonism in both countries. Armenia’s insistence that border and trade relations be normalized before any discussion of genocide began helped push the most contentious issue to the back burner.

Last September, President Abdullah Gul of Turkey attended a Turkey-Armenia soccer match in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, the first visit by a Turkish leader in the two nations’ history.

The symbolic gesture, dubbed soccer diplomacy, was widely opposed in both countries, where bitter ethnic enmity commands large majorities.

The central dispute is the genocide, about which there is little dispute among historians. Turkey has resisted the label, arguing that the Armenians were killed in warfare.

The next round of talks is scheduled to last six weeks, ending about the time of a World Cup match between Turkey and Armenia in Istanbul. President Serge Sargsyan of Armenia is invited to attend.

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