Turkey lobby goes to bat against Armenian genocide bill
Ankara and its allies are warning that this week’s vote would "poison" the already strained bilateral relationship.
Ankara and its allies are warning Congress of the risk of “permanent negative resentment” between Turkey and the United States if House members go forward with plans to recognize the 1915 Armenian genocide this week.
On Friday, Turkish Ambassador to the United States Serdar Kilic wrote to lawmakers to warn them that voting for the “biased” resolution would only add to the growing number of disputes between the two countries. The House Rules Committee is scheduled to take up the nonbinding resolution tonight, setting up a floor vote as early as Tuesday as lawmakers seek to punish Turkey for its intervention against the Kurds in Syria.
The bipartisan resolution recognizes the massacre of more than 1 million mostly Christian Armenians in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire as a genocide. According to Kilic, the bill “will considerably poison the political environment between Turkey and the United States, at a time when regional and international developments require extensive collaboration and cooperation between our two countries more than ever before.”
Kilic’s letter was published on Twitter by the Washington-based Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), which has long lobbied in favor of the resolution. The leaked letter was originally distributed to lawmakers by Venable, one of the six lobbying and public relations firms registered to work for the Turkish government.
