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Turkey warns US over 'genocide bill'
[Iran Press TV] Turkey's prime minister has reportedly written to the US president, warning Washington against declaring the World War I killings of Armenians in Turkey "genocide."Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent the letter to Barack B.O.Obama on Monday, saying that a potential congressional vote in favor of the designation threatened to seriously damage the Turkish-American ties, dpa reported, citing the Turkish press. "We are expecting that you will step in and intervene in Congress," he said. Historians estimate up to one and a half million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks in 1915. Turkey argues that the deaths had resulted from intercommunal violence at the time that also affected other ethnic groups and could not be labeled as genocide. Earlier in the year, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives passed a "genocide" resolution in a 23-22 vote. The move "seriously disturbed" Ankara and prompted it to recall its ambassador to Washington, refusing to send him back for one month. The House could hold a vote on the resolution on Tuesday. Should it earn the representatives' approval, the resolution threatens a feeble rapprochement between Ankara and Yerevan. Posted by: Fred 2010-12-22 |
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