Cold winds between Washington, Ankara continue to chill relations

The cold winds between Washington and Ankara have yet to subside as Turkish diplomats keep an eye on U.S. attitudes in the run up to April 24, the date when some countries commemorate the alleged Armenian “genocide” in the last days of the Ottoman Empire.

The Armenian lobby is mounting pressure to persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to use the term “genocide” in his annual speech as he promised during his election campaign.

Turkey has already recalled Ambassador Namık Tan in protest after the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee passed a resolution recognizing the 1915 killings as genocide on March 4. Any further move will harm bilateral strategic relations and deteriorate the normalization process with Armenia, Ankara has told Washington.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Burak Özügergin avoided announcing a specific date for Ambassador Tan’s return. “Our consultations are underway. Both ambassadors (to Washington and to Stockholm) will be able to go back in due course.”

Both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her deputy, Philip Gordon, said the Turkish envoy should be in Washington to advocate his thesis and help them attempt to convince the committee that the “genocide” resolution would serve neither U.S. interests nor normalization efforts between Turkey and Armenia.

“The U.S. administration displayed a late and weak reaction when the committee voted on the resolution,” Özügergin said when comparing the efforts to those of critics in the Swedish government during its parliamentary decision process. “They are at least in the right direction,” he said, signaling their policy of “wait and see.”

Upon questions related to a U.S. proposal to implement more sanctions on Iran, Özügergin underlined Turkey’s opposition in the U.N. Security Council.

“We believe more diplomatic efforts can help solve this problem rather than more sanctions. We learned a lot from the Iraq experience,” he said. “Of course, Turkey does not want a nuclear-armed neighbor, but every country has the right to develop nuclear programs for peaceful missions.”


/Hurriyet Daily News/