Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Bush warns against Armenia bill

BBC

President George W Bush has urged US legislators not to pass a resolution declaring the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire to be genocide.

"This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings," he said hours before a vote by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Such a move, already taken by France's parliament, would do "great harm" to US relations with Turkey, Mr Bush added.

Turkey disputes the causes of the 1915-1917 massacre.

Armenia alleges that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed in an organised campaign to force them out of what is now eastern Turkey.

That is strongly denied by Turkey which says that large numbers of Turks and Armenians were killed in the chaos surrounding World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire when Armenians rose up....

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