Turkey Recalls Its Ambassador For Talks
President Bush greets Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan in 2005.
ANKARA, Turkey- Turkey ordered its ambassador in Washington to return to Turkey for consultations over a U.S. House panel’s approval of a bill describing the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as genocide, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said Thursday.
The ambassador would stay in Turkey for about a week or 10 days for discussions about the measure, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Bilman.
“We are not withdrawing our ambassador. We have asked him to come to Turkey for some consultations,” he said. “The ambassador was given instructions to return and will come at his earliest convenience.”
State Department spokesman Tom Casey, said he was unaware of Turkey’s decision, but said the United States wants to continue to have good relations with Turkey.
“I’ll let the Turkish government speak for itself,” he said. “I think that the Turkish government has telegraphed for a long time, has been very vocal and very public about its concerns about this and has said that they did intend to act in very forceful way if this happens.”
Private NTV television said Turkey’s naval commander had canceled a planned trip to the United States over the bill.
Earlier, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson, was invited to the Foreign Ministry, where Turkish officials conveyed their “unease” over the bill and asked that the Bush administration do all in its power to stop the bill from passing in the full House, a Foreign Ministry official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to make press statements.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the bill Wednesday despite intense lobbying by Turkish officials and opposition from President Bush. The vote was a triumph for well-organized Armenian-American interest groups who have lobbied Congress for decades to pass a resolution. The administration will now try to pressure Democratic leaders in Congress not to schedule a vote, although it is expected to pass.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates reiterated his opposition to the resolution Thursday, saying the measure could hurt relations at a time when U.S. forces in Iraq rely heavily on Turkish permission to use their airspace for U.S. air cargo flights.
Relations are already strained by accusations that the U.S. is unwilling to help Turkey fight Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq.
About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq. U.S. bases also get water and other supplies by land from Turkish truckers who cross into the northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan.
Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying that the toll has been inflated and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.
Full Story By C. ONUR ANT(AP)
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hehe, the Turks don’t like being lectured, kind of remains of empire proudness ; who hasn’t ?
October 11th, 2007 at 1:57 pmThe only way to comprehend this resolution is that the Democrats are trying to find yet another way to disrupt the Iraq effort, given the amount of men and material that flows through Turkey. The Democrats need to grow the fuck up and realize that pissing off a major NATO ally a dumb and short-sited thing to do that does nothing but place American lives in jeapordy and threaten to further destablize the region.
October 11th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Argh!
October 11th, 2007 at 5:16 pmWhy is this any of our business…it isn’t and MY MONEY is paying for it….send congress to Afghanistan, and for those who resist…shoot them.
These low life bottom feeding leftist slime. This is just a back door attack to cut off the supply route.Pelosi and that gang are just lowest form of traitor. Scum, every last one of them.
October 11th, 2007 at 6:13 pmARMENIAN TERROR GROUP SUPPORTS RADICAL MOSLEMS
Source- BEIRUT, Lebanon—A leftist Armenian group earlier in the week, declared full support for Jihad Islami, an extremist organization that has claimed several anti-Armenian (sic) bombing attacks and gun-point abductions in Lebanon oven past few months. The Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), expressed its support for the radical Lebanese group for its revolutionary activities in a statement which was distributed to Western wine services here. The statement said Jihad Islamic organization, which translates as “Islamic Holy War,” with its revolutionary activities “has brought new momentum to the righteous struggle of oppressed people of the Middle East and the struggle for the liberation of Western Armenia from the fascist Turkish regime.” The statement said the struggle for the liberation of Armenian lands was an inseparable part of the righteous struggle of the Armenian people.
October 12th, 2007 at 11:33 am