Turkey’s Foreign Minister issued a cryptically threatening remark in response to a non-binding resolution before the U.S. Congress that would declare the World War I killings of Armenians in eastern Anatolia to be genocide.
The Turkish government still denies the murders happened on such a large scale, and warned that if the U.S. were to pass the resolution, it would “further damage” U.S.-Turkish relations, reports the Istanbul-based newspaper Today’s Zaman.
Foreign Minister Ali Babacan also said the move would create a backlash directed at Turkey’s Jewish population.
“We have told [the American Jewish groups] that we cannot explain it to the public in Turkey if a road accident happens. We have told them that we cannot keep the Jewish people out of this,” he said.
Sources
“U.S. image to suffer if resolution passes”
Today’s Zaman (Turkey), October 6, 2007
What I’d like to see happen is the declaration, and acknowledgement, that the slaughter of millions of Indegenous Peoples of North and South America which took place during the colonization process undertaken by both Europeans, and later by sovereign nations created on the two continents. How is it that labelling crimes against humanity on forgeign soil is a higher priority than identifying and making amends for crimes that committed domesically?