Erdoğan: Turkish not ready to return envoy to Washington
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
RIYADH - Agence France-Presse
Turkey said on Tuesday that Ankara is not ready to send its ambassador back to Washington after a U.S. Congress panel branded the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.
"As long as the situation does not get any clearer, we will not send back our ambassador to Washington," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told journalists in Riyadh.
"America should not let go of a strategic ally like Turkey over such an issue," he added, describing the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee's decision as "a comedy stunt."
An infuriated Turkey recalled its ambassador, Namık Tan, on Thursday, shortly after the panel narrowly approved the nonbinding resolution, which now opens the door for a vote at the full House of Representatives.
Erdoğan blamed the vote on a combination of "unbecoming" voting procedures in the U.S. Congress and a change of attitude by the "Jewish lobby" to back the resolution.
"The Jewish lobby in the U.S. supported this resolution," he said, adding that it represented "an attitude change" by Israel's supporters from the past.
In a bid to limit the fallout of the committee's decision, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday the administration would "work very hard" to stop the resolution from going before the full house.
The resolution calls on President Barack Obama to ensure that U.S. foreign policy reflects an understanding of the "genocide" and to label the mass killings as such in his annual statement on the issue.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed during World War I by their Ottoman rulers in a planned campaign of extermination as the empire was falling apart, a stance that is supported by several other countries.
The massacres followed a roundup in Istanbul on April 24, 1915, the date on which Armenians each year hold rallies around the world.
Turkey categorically rejects the genocide label, arguing that between 300,000 and 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks were killed in civil strife when Armenians rose up for independence and sided with invading Russian forces.
Ankara is concerned that if the killings are officially labeled genocide by Washington or others, this could possibly open the door to legal claims for restitution by the descendants of those who died, according to some analysts.
Following U.S.-backed bridge-building talks, Turkey and Armenia signed a deal last October to establish diplomatic relations and open their border.
But the process has already hit the rocks, with Ankara accusing Yerevan of trying to tweak the terms of the deal and Yerevan charging that Ankara is not committed to ratifying the accord.
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