Vote on Genocide Resolution in Doubt, Pelosi Says

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday a vote on a resolution labeling the World War I-era deaths of about 1.5 million Armenians as genocide was in doubt after key Democrats said it would harm U.S. relations with Turkey.

"Whether it will come up or not, or what the action will be, remains to be seen," Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters.

The speaker made her comments after a news conference organized by Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, who serves as chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

"If this resolution is enacted, our relationship with Turkey, a key NATO ally, will be severely jeopardized," Hastings said.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee voted 27-21 this month for the resolution. It has been offered repeatedly over the past two decades, but this year has the strong support of Pelosi.

Since the committee's vote, Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the United States and warned that passage of the resolution by the full House would damage relations at a time when the United States is highly dependent on Turkey's cooperation in fighting the Iraq war.

President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, eight of her predecessors and three former secretaries of defense have also urged Pelosi not to move forward with the resolution.

At the news conference, Hastings noted that more than half of the supplies for U.S. troops in Iran and Afghanistan move through air bases in Turkey and could be jeopardized by the resolution.

"Turkey is a moderate, Muslim nation with a secular democracy and it is geographically straddling the bridge between East and West at a time of great turmoil and uncertainty for countries in the region," he said.

Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., the co-chairman of the Congressional Turkey Caucus, said, "What we are asking is our own leadership to do what is right for the American national and strategic interest."

"This is an extremely difficult issue," Wexler said. "All of us feel extraordinary sympathy with the plight and the catastrophic death that the Armenian community suffered in the World War I period, but our responsibility — the bottom line — is to do what is right for our national security, and to take care of the security and well-being of our troops."

It is widely accepted that as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed over several years beginning in 1915.

But Turkey argues that the number was closer to 600,000 and blames turmoil and civil war as its predecessor, the Ottoman Empire, collapsed.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a close Pelosi ally in the House, said he has been fighting similar resolutions regarding the Armenian massacres since 1987.

"This happened 100 years ago," Murtha said. "We have to deal with today's world. We need allies if we are going to win this (Iraq) war and this is not a way to help us in an area where we have very few allies."

Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., who chairs the U.S. delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, noted that Turkey is the only Muslim member of NATO and a key ally.

Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a freshman Democratic House member from Memphis who recently returned from a trip to Turkey, said the issue is front-page news in the country.

"It's bigger than Elvis," he said.