US congressional panel approves Armenia genocide resolution

WASHINGTON: A US congressional panel defied President George W Bush and approved a measure calling the killings of Armenians early in the last century a genocide. Bush had warned this would damage US goals in the Middle East.

The measure that would recognise the killings of Armenians as genocide had been strongly opposed by Turkey, a key NATO ally that has provided support to US efforts in Iraq.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee's 27-21 vote now sends the measure to the full House floor - unless the Democratic leadership reverses course and heeds Bush's warnings.

Bush and other senior officials had made a last-minute push to persuade lawmakers on the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee to reject the measure.

"Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror," Bush said hours before the vote.

The dispute involves the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians 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 denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated and insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Just ahead of the vote, Turkey made a final direct appeal to US lawmakers to reject the resolution. The US vote comes as Turkey's government was seeking parliamentary approval for a cross-border military operation to chase separatist Kurdish rebels who operate from bases in northern Iraq.

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com