According to an interview held with the US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman, Howard Berman, many Congressmen that formerly refrained from supporting the Armenian Genocide Resolution now agree with the procedure as Turkey’s involvement with the IHH has caused massive resentment. However, Berman states that in either case the resolution would not affect the Turkish-Armenian normalization process.

There is a widespread belief in Turkish public that you have used your personal discretion to wait long enough to change the result of the House Foreign Affairs Committee vote on House Resolution 252. Could you explain exactly what happened regarding the procedure?
Howard Berman: I know that keeping the vote open for two hours may have appeared unusual to Turkish viewers. In fact, it is unusual, but there is substantial precedent for it and it is perfectly legitimate. Because various groups of Congressmen were being shuttled to the White House to meet with the President on his health-care reform legislation, we couldn’t find a time when every Congressman on the Committee was available to vote. That’s why we kept it open. In fact, because it is an uncommon procedure, keeping the vote open required the agreement of every Member of the Committee. If any Member of the Committee had objected, we could not have done it. Both opponents and supporters of the resolution, Democrats as well as Republicans, could have objected, but none did. In fact, the leading Republican on the Committee, an opponent of the resolution, agreed with the procedure.

Do you think the resolution will be brought to the House Floor, especially now in light of the flotilla incident with Israel?
I think the Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bring it to the floor once she is convinced that it has the support of a majority of the House of Representatives, so that it can pass. In the past, many Congressmen who were convinced that Armenians had been victims of genocide nevertheless refrained from supporting the resolution, because they were concerned about how Turkey would react. But the number of such Congressmen may well be smaller now – meaning that more of them may support the resolution – since so many Congressmen are upset with Turkey’s involvement with the IHH and the flotilla. As you know, I’m a strong supporter of the bill, so I hope that it will soon get majority support and that the House will pass it.

What are your thoughts on the President Obama’s announcement on the 24th of April?
The President did his best to balance his personal convictions with what he perceives to be U.S. national interests. Still, even without using the word “genocide,” by simply stating that “my view of that history has not changed,” he managed to convey clearly that he considers the events of 1915-16 a genocide. Armenia suspended the ratification of the protocols until Turkey makes a step forward. On the other hand the Turkish government claims that the House resolution hampers the normalization and reconciliation process with Armenia.

How big do you think the resolution’s impact might be on the process?
I don’t think our resolution has had any impact on the process of ratifying the protocols.

The protocols were signed in October. They could have been ratified any time thereafter, but the Turkish parliament took no action. Our mark-up was in March, five months after the protocols were signed. The original, core element of the protocols was the de-linking of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem from the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border.

Turkish leaders showed courage in pursuing such an agreement. But once Turkish leaders saw that their own electorate objected to opening the border without a Nagorno-Karabakh solution, the protocols were in trouble. Then the Armenian Constitutional Court ruling in January upset many Turkish parliamentarians, even though I think they misunderstood it. Even before we marked up our resolution, some Turkish parliamentarians were acknowledging that there was no prospect that the protocols would be ratified any time soon. As I said, our resolution has had no impact on Turkey’s decision so far not to pursue ratification. By the way, I would like to say that I have visited Turkey many times and have great affection for Turkey and the Turkish people. I very much regret that many citizens of the Turkish Republic seem to take the charge of genocide as a kind of personal insult. They are not personally responsible for the genocide, but they should be able to examine it honestly and acknowledge it.

Source: Cumhuriyet
URL: en.cumhuriyet.com/?hn=161206