Garden Knowm
The Love Doctor
WOW this kind of shit is obsurd.... c'mon GEORGE... sack it up young lad...
do the right thing...
The turks are the ones that need this resolution.. the sooner they accept to the "atrocities", the sooner they can start the healing process...
White House warns against Armenia resolution
Bush administration urges Congress to reject legislation on 'genocide'
Updated: 40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush strongly urged Congress on Wednesday to reject
legislation that would declare the World War I-era killings of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians a genocide, saying it would do "great harm" to
relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq war.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates
issued a joint appeal at the White House just hours before the House Foreign
Affairs Committee was to vote on the measure opposed by Bush - and which
Turkey insists could severely damage U.S. relations with a NATO ally that
has been a major portal for U.S. military operations in the region.
"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic for
everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.
'Put at risk'
Gates said that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through
Turkey, as does about a third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.
"Access to air fields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much
be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we
believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95 percent of the newly
purchased Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles are flying through Turkey
to get to Iraq.
Turkey made a final direct appeal to U.S. lawmakers to reject the
resolution. The U.S. vote comes as Turkey's government was seeking
parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation to chase
separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move,
opposed by the United States, could open a new war front in the most stable
part of Iraq.
"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic
mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A measure of the potential problem came in a warning the U.S. Embassy in
Ankara issued Tuesday to U.S. citizens in Turkey of "demonstrations and
other manifestations of anti-Americanism throughout Turkey" if the bill
passes the committee and gets to the House floor for a vote, the embassy
statement said.
Anti-U.S. protests in Turkey
On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to U.S. missions in Turkey to
protest the bill. In Ankara, members of the left-wing Workers' Party chanted
anti-American slogans in front of the embassy, the state-run Anatolia news
agency reported. A group of about 200 people staged a similar protest in
front of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, private NTV television said.
Anatolia quoted a party official as saying that the "genocide claim was an
international, imperialist and a historical lie."
The basic dispute involves the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by
genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies
that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated, and
insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
Interest groups rally supporters
Armenian-American interest groups also have been rallying supporters in the
large diaspora community to pressure lawmakers to make sure that a
successful committee vote leads to consideration by the full House.
The bill seemed to have enough support on the committee for passage, but the
majority was slight and some backers said they feared that Turkish pressure
would narrow it. Most Republicans, who are a minority on the committee, were
expected to vote against the resolution.
On Tuesday, Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of
America, sought to shore up support in letters to the committee's chairman,
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and its ranking Republican member, Florida Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
"We have a unique opportunity in this Congress, while there are still
survivors of the Armenian genocide living among us, to irrevocably and
unequivocally reaffirm this fact of history," he said.
The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, was to
give the opening invocation to the House's session ahead of the vote
Wednesday.
Erdogan adviser Bagis said the resolution would make it hard for his
government to continue close cooperation with the United States and resist
calls from the public to go after the Kurdish rebels after deadly attacks on
soldiers in recent weeks. Turkey previously has said it would prefer that
the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in northern Iraq crack down on
the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
The United States reiterated on Tuesday its warnings against an incursion.
do the right thing...
The turks are the ones that need this resolution.. the sooner they accept to the "atrocities", the sooner they can start the healing process...
White House warns against Armenia resolution
Bush administration urges Congress to reject legislation on 'genocide'
Updated: 40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - President Bush strongly urged Congress on Wednesday to reject
legislation that would declare the World War I-era killings of hundreds of
thousands of Armenians a genocide, saying it would do "great harm" to
relations with Turkey, a key ally in the Iraq war.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates
issued a joint appeal at the White House just hours before the House Foreign
Affairs Committee was to vote on the measure opposed by Bush - and which
Turkey insists could severely damage U.S. relations with a NATO ally that
has been a major portal for U.S. military operations in the region.
"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic for
everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.
'Put at risk'
Gates said that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through
Turkey, as does about a third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.
"Access to air fields and to the roads and so on in Turkey would very much
be put at risk if this resolution passes and Turkey reacts as strongly as we
believe they will," Gates said. He also said that 95 percent of the newly
purchased Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles are flying through Turkey
to get to Iraq.
Turkey made a final direct appeal to U.S. lawmakers to reject the
resolution. The U.S. vote comes as Turkey's government was seeking
parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation to chase
separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq. The move,
opposed by the United States, could open a new war front in the most stable
part of Iraq.
"I have been trying to warn the (U.S.) lawmakers not to make a historic
mistake," said Egemen Bagis, a close foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
A measure of the potential problem came in a warning the U.S. Embassy in
Ankara issued Tuesday to U.S. citizens in Turkey of "demonstrations and
other manifestations of anti-Americanism throughout Turkey" if the bill
passes the committee and gets to the House floor for a vote, the embassy
statement said.
Anti-U.S. protests in Turkey
On Wednesday, hundreds of Turks marched to U.S. missions in Turkey to
protest the bill. In Ankara, members of the left-wing Workers' Party chanted
anti-American slogans in front of the embassy, the state-run Anatolia news
agency reported. A group of about 200 people staged a similar protest in
front of the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul, private NTV television said.
Anatolia quoted a party official as saying that the "genocide claim was an
international, imperialist and a historical lie."
The basic dispute involves the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by
Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by
genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies
that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated, and
insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
Interest groups rally supporters
Armenian-American interest groups also have been rallying supporters in the
large diaspora community to pressure lawmakers to make sure that a
successful committee vote leads to consideration by the full House.
The bill seemed to have enough support on the committee for passage, but the
majority was slight and some backers said they feared that Turkish pressure
would narrow it. Most Republicans, who are a minority on the committee, were
expected to vote against the resolution.
On Tuesday, Bryan Ardouny, executive director of the Armenian Assembly of
America, sought to shore up support in letters to the committee's chairman,
Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., and its ranking Republican member, Florida Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.
"We have a unique opportunity in this Congress, while there are still
survivors of the Armenian genocide living among us, to irrevocably and
unequivocally reaffirm this fact of history," he said.
The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Catholicos Karekin II, was to
give the opening invocation to the House's session ahead of the vote
Wednesday.
Erdogan adviser Bagis said the resolution would make it hard for his
government to continue close cooperation with the United States and resist
calls from the public to go after the Kurdish rebels after deadly attacks on
soldiers in recent weeks. Turkey previously has said it would prefer that
the United States and its Iraqi Kurd allies in northern Iraq crack down on
the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
The United States reiterated on Tuesday its warnings against an incursion.
