02/22/07: NYSun: Turkey Up in Arms Over House Resolution Against Armenian ‘Genocide'

By ELI LAKE
Staff Reporter of the Sun
February 22, 2007

WASHINGTON — Turkey was so alarmed by a proposed House resolution calling the mass slaughter of Armenians by Turks during World War I a "genocide" that it dispatched its foreign minister to persuade American Jewish leaders to lobby against it.

At a suite at the Willard Hotel in Washington on February 5, Abdullah Gül met with representatives of the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Friends of Lubavitch, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and United Jewish Communities. According to one participant in the meeting, the Turkish foreign minister "made a hard sell," against House resolution 106, whose short title is "Affirmation of the United States Record on the Armenian Genocide Resolution."

This participant, who asked not to be named, said Mr. Gül appealed to the assembled Jewish representatives by noting the singularity of the German genocide against the Jews and warning that the House resolution, if passed, would rupture American-Turkish relations.

The Turks have reason to be worried. Although the resolution has faced opposition from the House leadership in previous congressional sessions, the current speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, is said to support it. Indeed, Ms. Pelosi has supported similar resolutions in the past. The resolution is now before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, whose chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos of California, has supported the Armenian genocide resolution in recent sessions, though he opposed it in the past.

Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/49061