Bush Calls for Rejection of House Resolution on WWI Armenian 'Genocide'
WASHINGTON — Just hours before a crucial vote, President Bush strongly urged Congress on Wednesday to reject legislation that would declare the World War I-era killings of hundreds of thousands of Armenians a genocide.
Bush spoke as the House Foreign Affairs Committee was preparing to vote on the measure that Turkey insists could severely damage U.S. relations with a NATO ally that has been a major portal for U.S. military operations in the region.
"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," the president said.
Shortly before the president spoke, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates stood before microphones on the White House driveway to express the administration's concerns.
"The passage of this resolution at this time would be very problematic for everything we are trying to do in the Middle East," Rice said.
Gates said that 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey, as does about a third of the fuel used by the U.S. military in Iraq.
Turkey threatens to send troops into Iraq
Again
And again
And let's not forget that Turkey refused to let us use their country to move troops into Iraq from the north thereby allowing folks like Al-Dura to escape. Al-Dura is believed to be one of the most prominent leaders of the Sunni resistance now.
UPDATE: 3:43 PM EST
It looks like Turkey isn't going to wait on UN approval as they are turning up the heat. They are engaging in military action now with jets and tanks. The planes are of course American made and my prediction about tying the two events together has come true.
Turkey escalates offensive near border
SIRNAK, Turkey - Turkish warplanes and helicopter gunships attacked
suspected positions of Kurdish rebels near Iraq on Wednesday, a possible prelude
to a cross-border operation that would likely raise tensions with Washington.
The military offensive also reportedly included shelling of Turkish Kurd
guerrilla hideouts in northern Iraq, which is predominantly Kurdish. U.S.
officials are already preoccupied with efforts to stabilize other areas of Iraq
and oppose Turkish intervention in the relatively peaceful north.And here is the linkageTurkey and the United States are NATO allies, but relations have also been
tense over a U.S. congressional bill that would label the mass killings of
Armenians by Turks around the time of World War I as genocide.
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