[NYTr] Turks: US Is Shooting Itself in the Foot

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AP via MSNBC - Oct 14, 2007
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21294333/

Turkish general: U.S. 'shot its own foot'

Official warns of irreversible damage if Congress passes genocide
resolution

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Turkey's top general warned that ties with the U.S.,
already strained by attacks from rebels hiding in Iraq, will be
irreversibly damaged if Congress passes a resolution that labels the
World War I-era killings of Armenians a genocide.

Turkey, which is a major cargo hub for U.S. and allied military forces
in Iraq and Afghanistan, has recalled its ambassador to Washington for
consultations and warned that there might be a cut in the logistical
support to the U.S. over the issue.

Gen. Yasar Buyukanit told daily Milliyet newspaper that a congressional
committee's approval of the measure had already harmed ties between the
two countries.

"If this resolution passed in the committee passes the House as well,
our military ties with the U.S. will never be the same again,"
Buyukanit was quoted as saying by Milliyet.

"I'm the military chief, I deal with security issues. I'm not a
politician," Buyukanit was quoted as saying by Milliyet. "In this
regard, the U.S. shot its own foot."

President Bush has said the resolution is the wrong response to the
Armenian deaths, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the measure's
timing was important "because many of the survivors are very old."

"It is a statement made by 23 other countries. We would be the 24th
country to make this statement. Genocide still exists, and we saw it in
Rwanda; we see it now in Darfur," she told ABC's "This Week" in an
interview broadcast Sunday.

But Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the measure was "irresponsible."

"Listen, there's no question that the suffering of the Armenian people
some 90 years ago was extreme. But what happened 90 years ago ought to
be a subject for historians to sort out, not politicians here in
Washington," he told "Fox News Sunday."

A passage point to Iraq
About 70 percent of U.S. air cargo headed for Iraq goes through Turkey
as does about one-third of the fuel used by the U.S. military there.
U.S. bases also get water and other supplies carried in overland by
Turkish truckers who cross into Iraq's northern Kurdish region.

In addition, C-17 cargo planes fly military supplies to U.S. soldiers
in remote areas of Iraq from Incirlik, avoiding the use of Iraqi roads
vulnerable to bomb attacks. U.S. officials say the arrangement helps
reduce American casualties.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has "urged restraint" from Turkey
and sent two high-ranking officials to Ankara in an apparent attempt to
ease fury over the measure which could be voted on by the House by the
end of the year.

Buyukanit's remarks were published a day after a visit by Dan Fried,
assistant secretary of state for European affairs, and Eric Edelman,
who is the undersecretary of defense for policy.

"Secretary of State Rice Condoleezza Rice asked us before we came here
to express that the Bush administration is opposed to this resolution,"
Edelman said Saturday.

The issue: 1.5 million deaths
At issue in the resolution is the killing of up to 1.5 million
Armenians by Ottoman Turks. Many international historians contend the
World War I-era deaths amounted to genocide, but Turkey says the mass
killings and deportations were not systematic and that many Turkish
Muslims died in the chaos of war.

The congressional resolution comes as the Turkish parliament debates
authorizing a military campaign into northern Iraq to root out rebels
who seek a unified, independent nation for Kurds in the region.

U.S. officials have urged Turkey not to send troops and appealed for a
diplomatic solution with Iraq. The Kurdish self-rule region in northern
Iraq is one of the country's few relatively stable areas and the Kurds
here are also a longtime U.S. ally.

A Kurdish rebel commander on Saturday said Turkey would face a long and
bloody conflict if it launched a large-scale offensive in northern Iraq.

Speaking to The Associated Press deep in the Qandil mountains
straddling the Iraq-Turkish border, some 94 miles from the northern
Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah, Murat Karayilan, head of the armed
wing of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, warned that an eventual
Turkish incursion would "make Turkey experience a Vietnam war."

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey since 1984.
The conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Turkey says the
rebels use Iraqi Kurdish territory as a safe haven. Iraqi and Kurdish
authorities reject the claim.