RECOGNITION OF ARMENIAN GENOCIDE ADVANCES

Recognition of the Armenian genocide has substantially advanced both in the US and Turkey, among officials in the US and among academics and the public in Turkey, despite official Turkish denial.

In the United States, the House International Relations Committee voted in favor of two measures (H. Res. 316, H. Con. Res 195 and H. Con. Res. 195) calling for ‰¥þproper US recognition of the Armenian Genocide and urging Turkey to end its decades long denial of this crime against humanity, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).‰¥ÿ

HOUSE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE OVERWHELMINGLY ADOPTS ARMENIAN GENOCIDE LEGISLATION

Following almost three hours of remarks by a bipartisan group of 24 Members of Congress, the House International Relations Committee, today, voted in favor of two measures calling for proper U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide and urging
Turkey to end its decades long denial of this crime against humanity, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).  The votes clear yet another hurdle toward full House recognition of the Armenian Genocide‰¥Ï.

In his concluding remarks, Chairman Henry Hyde responded to arguments that passage of the Genocide resolutions could potentially harm U.S. - Turkey relations.  While noting that, "I very much believe the [U.S.-Turkey] relationship is of great importance to us," Rep. Hyde stated, "I don't believe that these resolutions will harm that relationship. They merely recognize the fact that the authorities of the Ottoman Empire deliberately slaughtered the majority of the Armenian community in that Empire."  Rep. Hyde went on to note that "denial of that fact cannot be justified on the basis of expediency
or fear that speaking the truth will do us harm."‰¥Ï.

The Turkish Ambassador Faruk Logoglu and his lobbyists - includingthe Livingston Group - actively made the rounds to members of the International Relations Committee, seeking to block any action on U.S. reaffirmation of the Armenian Genocide. As part of this effort, the Livingston Group distributed a four-page genocide-denial document to Congressional offices.  During the mark up, former Congressmen Livingston and Stephen Solarz and their team of lobbyists, were actively seeking to defeat these measures.

Earlier this week, American Turkish Council Chairman, former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft warned Speaker Dennis Hastert that even the discussion of the Armenian Genocide on the floor of the U.S. House would be "counter-productive to the
interests of the United States."‰¥Ï.

Both the ATC and ATAA have come under scrutiny in recent weeks as the result of a 10-page story in Vanity Fair detailing FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmond's reports that it's officials were involved in illegal efforts to defeat Armenian Genocide legislation
in the fall of 2000.

In Turkey, despite the fact that the conference ‰¥þon the Armenian problem‰¥ÿ scheduled at Bogozici University for 23-25 September was cancelled or deferred because of legal maneuvers by Turkish nationalists, there are signs that Turkish intellectuals and others recognize the genocide as evidenced from this article by Ahmet Altan on May 9 (thanks to the Zoryan Institute for the translation and to Tina Zeidner for calling this to our attention):

Genocide...

By Ahmet Altan
May 9, 2005

http://www.gazetem.net/ahmetaltan.asp
Translated by the Zoryan Institute


I would like to ask a very simple, ordinary question.

Would you wish to be an Armenian in 1915?

No, you wouldn't.

Because now you know you would have been killed.

Please stop arguing about the number of murdered or the denials or the
attempts to replace pain with statistics.

No one is denying that Armenians were murdered, right?

It may be 300,000, or 500,000, or 1.5 million.

I don't know which number is the truth, or whether anyone knows the true
number accurately.

What I do know is the existence of the death and pain beyond these
numbers.

I am also aware how we forget that we are talking about human beings
when we are passionately debating the numbers.

Those numbers cannot describe the murdered babies, women, the elderly,
the teenage boys and girls.

If we leave the numbers aside, and if we allow ourselves to hear the
story of only one of these murders, I am sure that even those of us who
get enraged when they hear the words "Armenian Genocide" will feel the
pain, will have tears in their eyes.

Because they will realize that we are talking about human beings‰¥Ï.