It Is About Time!

[Lev7]

International Herald Tribune, France

The Associated Press

Dec 26 2006

 

WASHINGTON: With Democrats taking control of the U.S. Congress,

prospects have increased that lawmakers will approve a resolution

recognizing the World War I-era killings of Armenians as genocide -

despite the objections of President George W. Bush.

 

The shift in Congress also dims the likelihood that the Bush

administration can break a deadlock over the president'ss nominee

for ambassador to Armenia, Richard Hoagland. Senate Democrats have

blocked Hoagland's nomination because of his refusal to call the

killings a genocide.

 

The matters before Congress highlight how the deaths of the 1.5 million

Armenians almost a century ago remain a sensitive international issue

today. The Bush administration has warned that even congressional

debate on the genocide question could damage relations with Turkey,

a moderate Muslim nation that is a NATO member and an important

strategic ally.

 

Turkey has adamantly denied claims by scholars that its predecessor

state, the Ottoman government, caused the Armenian deaths in a planned

genocide. The Turkish government has said the toll is wildly inflated

and that Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during

the empire's collapse.

 

After French lawmakers voted in October to make it a crime to deny

that the killings were a genocide, Turkey said it would suspend

military relations with France.

 

In Washington, Armenian-American groups have been pressing for years

for a resolution on the genocide issue. The House of Representatives'

International Relations Committee last year endorsed two resolutions

classifying the killings as genocide. But the House leadership,

controlled by Bush's Republican Party, prevented a vote by the full

chamber.

 

With Democrats taking over the House, the top leader will be Nancy

Pelosi, who has supported the genocide legislation. A spokesman for

Pelosi, Drew Hamill, says she'll continue to support the resolutions.

 

"I think we have the best chance probably in a decade to get an

Armenian genocide resolution passed," said Democratic Congressman

Adam Schiff, a top advocate of the resolutions.

 

The genocide question was the key issue as the Senate considered

the ambassadorial nomination of Hoagland to replace John Evans,

who reportedly had his tour of duty cut short because, in a social

setting, he referred to the killings as genocide.

 

Senator Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, blocked the nomination

over Hoagland's refusal to use the word genocide at his confirmation

hearing in June. With Democrats taking over the Senate, it will be

even more difficult now for the Bush administration to circumvent

Menendez's objections.

 

Early this month, Menendez and the Senate's top Democrat, Harry Reid

of Nevada, wrote a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

asking the Bush administration to withdraw the nomination.

 

But an administration official responded in a letter to Menendez that

it was continuing to back Hoagland.

 

"Despite some claims to the contrary, neither Ambassador-designate

Hoagland nor the administration has ever minimized or denied the fact

or the extent of the annihilation and forced exile of as many as 1.5.

 

million ethnic Armenians in the final years of the Ottoman Empire,"

Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns wrote. The letter was provided

to The Associated Press by a congressional aide, who requested

anonymity because the administration had not agreed to its release.

 

"It would be a shame for the entire Foreign Service should

Ambassador-designate Hoagland, an experienced diplomat with a

distinguished record of service, be denied confirmation due to past

disagreements over Ambassador Evans."