19 October 2007: Washington, DC -- Important lessons leave the current discrepancy between the Turkish government and the House Foreign Relations Committee of the United States, when the latter one voted to call the killings, by the Ottoman Empire, of more than 1.5 million Armenians genocide.

It has been claimed that during 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Empire deported the Armenian population living in Turkey to the countries of Iraq and Syria. The problem was that the Ottoman Empire did not provide support to the population deported and they were subject of starvation, thefts, killings and rapes. The New York Times reported in August of 1915 that, “the roads and the Euphrates are strewn with corpses of exiles, and those who survive are doomed to certain death. It is a plan to exterminate the whole Armenian people.” While the Ambassador of the United States to the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, Henry Morgenthau Sr. on July 16, 1915 affirmed in a letter to the State Department that “it appears that a campaign of race extermination is in progress under a pretext of reprisal against rebellion.”

Although the vote of the American Committee is symbolic, what is bothering the Turkish government is that the matter happened almost a hundred years ago when Turkey did not exist as a nation. It is an issue and the shame that the Turkish nation inherited from the Ottoman Empire. Turkey has always recognized the killings, but as a part of the clashes and fragmentation of the 500 year-old Empire. The issue is so sensitive in Turkey that recognizing the genocide is considered a crime to be served in jail. 

On the other hand, the Bush administration is instructing the House to not put forward a full vote, in fear that Turkey will reconsider its long-term relationship with the United States. Therefore, these political and military considerations call for the White House to postpone the vote in the congress for two reasons. First, Turkey has always been a key ally in the Middle East for the United States and currently a great percentage of American air cargo and fuel being used in Iraq goes through a Turkish air base.

Second, during the last weeks Turkish-Kurd guerilla separatist from Iraq have been attacking military bases in Turkey, putting pressure on the Turkish president to respond to the attacks. This means that there is a possibility of Turkish military forces going to Iraq to qualm the separatists which is even greater considering the Turkish Senate already approved to attack the Kurds. The United States is trying to strop this possible situation because it is afraid that the only stable region in Iraq will become a battleground.

Armenians have been lobbying the United State Congress for decades to label the killings of 1915-1923 as genocide, but with no success. Currently, it appears that with Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House, having a large Armenian-American population in her district, the Armenians finally have their chance.

The issues in the situation are very conflicting. There is a Turkish nation that forbids talking about the genocide, while still wanting to be part of the modernity of the European Union. At the same time, the U.S. administration is afraid of losing its key ally in the Middle East, the same ally that is examining the possibility of interfering with the only part of Iraq that has had less conflict as the main land.