Turkish General Warns US against Passing Armenian Genocide Resolution
Make no mistake about it, this is simply a further attempt to weaken and embarrass the President by members of Congress.
The commander of Turkey’s armed forces warned that US-Turkish military relations will be irreparably damaged if the US House of Representatives approves a resolution accusing his country of genocide for the mass killings of Armenians nearly a century ago, according to an interview published yesterday.
“If this resolution passed in the committee passes the House as well, our military ties with the US will never be the same again,” General Yasar Buyukanit told the daily newspaper Milliyet in the interview.
The admonition from the senior officer in Turkey’s politically powerful military echoed warnings from the country’s top civilian political leaders since the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the resolution Wednesday. Turkey argues that the killings and disappearances of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were not genocide but the result of brutal war during the last years of the Ottoman Empire.
“The United States is clearly an important ally,” Buyukanit said. “But an allied country does not behave in this way.”
Bush administration officials and US military leaders who oppose the resolution say they fear Turkey could limit crucial air and land supply lines into Iraq as punishment if the measure is accepted by the full House of Representatives.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, reaffirmed that the resolution would be called to the floor this week. A similar resolution was pulled from the floor in 2000 by then-speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, after he was asked to do so by President Clinton. Pelosi said she had not heard from President Bush about this bill.
