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Armenian Genocide Label Angers Turkey

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By SEBNEM ARSU, The New York Times

Published: October 12, 2007

ISTANBUL, Turkey - The government here reacted angrily Thursday to a House committee vote in Washington to condemn the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I as genocide, recalling its ambassador from Washington and threatening to withdraw its support for the Iraq war.

President Abdullah Gul criticized the vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee in a statement to the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency and warned that the decision could work against the United States.

'Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games,' Gul said.

The House vote comes at a particularly inopportune time. Washington has called on Turkey to show restraint as the Turkish military mobilizes on its border with Iraq, threatening an incursion against Kurdish insurgents.

The possibility of Turkish military intervention in Iraq against Kurdish separatists has long worried U.S. officials for its potential to ignite a wider war spilling from Iraq.

The committee vote in the House rebuffed an intense campaign by the White House and earlier warnings from Turkey's government that such a vote would gravely strain relations with the United States.

Turkish lawmakers warned that if the resolution were approved by the full House, they would reconsider supporting the U.S. war effort in Iraq.

In the Armenian genocide, 1.5 million Armenians were killed beginning in 1915 in a systematic campaign by the fraying Ottoman Empire to drive Armenians out of eastern Turkey. Identifying Armenian killings as genocide is considered an insult against Turkish identity, a crime under article 301 of the Turkish penal code.

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