YEREVAN HASN'T WON YET, BUT THE CONGRESS HAS ALREADY LOST

The US Congress` House of Representatives is to consider the latest "Armenian resolution" describing the events of 1915 as "genocide" on 24 April, the date when the Armenian community remembers the victims of the "genocide". If the US Congress passes Resolution 106 on recognizing the "Armenian genocide" (the inverted commas here and elsewhere are ours - Ed), it will be a historic event. This is what one of the leaders of the Dashnaktsutyun, Armen Rustamyan, chairman of the standing commission on foreign relations, told a press conference. 

Mr Rustamyan has the brightest of plans. First, he is sure that this is the most favourable time for passage of the resolution: "Democrats make up the majority in the US Congress and they have always supported recognition of the 'Armenian genocide' and, most important, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, upon whom much depends, is in favour of the resolution," Rustamyan said. He is also sure of a future domino effect and that this move by the USA will be followed by recognition of the "Armenian genocide" in many European countries. 

Echoes of Russia's defeat of the Ottomans in Crimea

Without even waiting for the vote, they're working out action plans in Yerevan. The director of the Armenian Academy of Sciences' History Institute, Ashot Melkonyan, said during a conference entitled "The Armenian response to Azerbaijan and Turkey's anti-Armenian campaign" that the process of recognition of "the 'Armenian genocide' can be considered complete" today and that now it is time for the next stage, the legal one, that is, to raise the issue of compensation for the "genocide" victims. From the very beginning in Armenia they have demanded "compensation for the victims of genocide" not only financial payments for lost property but also "territorial reparations". Turkish Daily News commentator Mehmet Ali Biranda had good reason to ask bluntly, what can Turkey expect if Congress passes the resolution on "the Armenian genocide"? "Will they demand compensation from us or territory or will they unleash war against us? We have to know what is waiting for us at the end of the road," the journalist says.

In Armenia they are not concealing their far-reaching plans. The Armenian president's national security adviser, Garnik Isagulyan, made a remarkable comment. He said he was sure that "the Turkish government's remarks to the USA about the possible passage through Congress of the resolution on the 'Armenian genocide' are hardly like to produce the desired result for Turkey" and continued, "I think that it is highly likely that the resolution will be passed. In this case Turkey might take steps to establish closer cooperation with Russia. We are very carefully watching how events develop, but I do not think that such an eventuality would pose a serious threat to our security."

Experts say that Garnik Isagulyan is not the first to predict a cooling in Turkey's relations with the USA and a rapprochement with Russia. The Russian media were full of similar predictions several years ago when Vladimir Putin visited Turkey for the ceremonial opening of the Blue Stream gas pipeline. Moscow reckoned that "moderate Islamists" in the shape of the Justice and Welfare Party coming to power would make Turkey abandon cooperation with the USA and NATO, and Russia would be the first to make it to the geopolitical cutting of the Turkish pie. The predictions did not come true then and could not come true. Although it's possible to make endless barbed comments about how it's now the turn of Armenian analysts - as Winston Churchill said, first predict what will happen tomorrow, next month, next year, and then explain why it didn't happen - something else is striking. Whenever discussion on recognition of the "Armenian genocide" is stepped up, it is timed to coincide with the strengthening of the aggressive component in Moscow's foreign policy. The "genocide" myth was hurriedly used by Joseph Stalin in the 1940s and 50s when he demanded that Turkey give the USSR the "Armenian vilayets", or governorates, and deploy a Soviet military base on the Bosporus. 

The campaign to get all sorts of "Armenian resolutions" into the parliaments of the world, including the US Congress, reached its peak in the 1970s. Against the backdrop of the energy crisis and fantastic revenues from its own oil, astronomical sums flowed into the military-industrial complex and far-reaching geopolitical projects were devised. Turkey was again to become the first victim and the myth of the "Armenian genocide" was required again as a basis for territorial claims against Turkey. It was a win-win situation: on the one hand, Moscow reckoned on creating the necessary PR basis for its claims, while on the other hand it would stretch tension to the limit in Turkey's relations with its Western partners. Deprived of Western support, Turkey appeared a much easier prize to Moscow strategists. Now oil prices are rocketing again, excessive profits are again being pumped into Russia's military industry and Garnik Isagulyan's hint about old geopolitical plans no longer looks like a chance remark; the current "genocide recognition" campaign again fits into the far-reaching plans of those circles in Moscow that are thinking as before in terms of "the time of Ochakovo and subjugation of Crimea".

Looking after No 1

As could be expected, the US administration is clearly not overjoyed at the work of the Armenian lobby: risking relations with Turkey is a luxury that Washington cannot afford in the current situation. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said that US President George Bush had sent a letter to Congress calling on it not to pass the resolution on the "Armenian genocide", The New Anatolian reported. "The US administration is against the resolution submitted last month by the Democratic majority in Congress which opposes President Bush," the Turkish foreign minister said, according to the Turkish media. Gul also said that if the resolution is passed, this will drive American-Turkish relations into a blind alley and called on the US administration to act. Hurriyet had earlier quoted a source in the Turkish Foreign Ministry as saying that the main objective of Abdullah Gul's visit to the USA had been to oppose discussion in the US Congress of the resolution on the "Armenian genocide". "We explained to everyone how painful this issue is for the Turkish people. The US administration understands the importance of the situation. We did everything possible, including in Congress." The same source said that even if the process of discussion of the bill on the "Armenian genocide" begins in Congress, then President Bush will stop it. The US State Department is also reported to have prepared an official letter to the members of Congress entitled "Why Turkey is important".

While he was in the USA, the Turkish chief of General Staff, Yasar Buyukanit, held talks with the chairman of the USA's Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Peter Pace, and in meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney and the US military command discussed strategic bilateral relations - Iraq, the struggle against the PKK, the Middle East. That is, he reminded the USA what they are risking, all else aside. And he topped it all by holding talks with Congressman Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, who said: "We will do everything to ensure that the Armenian bill does not go through."

The Washington Post made some interesting recommendations to Ankara. Its commentator Jackson Diehl advised Turkey not to take the "Armenian genocide" bill "seriously". In a piece entitled The House's Ottoman Agenda, the commentator compares this resolution with Congress's resolution against the war in Iraq. Jackson Diehl wrote that the 70 to 80,000 ethnic Armenians in Adam Schiff's constituency played a role in the tabling of the bill in the House. He also mentioned the electorate in the constituency of House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi who promised to have the bill passed in return for their support. The Washington Post commentator thinks that most members of the House of Representatives do not even know about such a distant event as the "Armenian genocide". "Imagine the 435 members of the House, many of whom still don't know the difference between Iraqi Shiites and Sunnis, solemnly weighing whether Schiff's version of events 92 years ago in northeastern Turkey deserves congressional endorsement," The Washington Post writes. 

Many people might not like Jackson Diehl's description of the legislators on Capitol Hill. For all the journalist's irony, it's hard to miss his evident concern at the fate of US-Turkish relations: in the current situation Washington cannot afford to undervalue its allies. About two weeks ago the British newspaper The Guardian printed the predictions of Mehmet Ali Biranda of the Turkish Daily News and Asli Aydinbas of Sabah that this would pose a threat to Turkish-US relations on Iraq. The Turkish analysts were quoted in The Guardian as saying that if the resolution is adopted, then Turkish troops would most probably begin a long-planned operation against PKK fighters in northern Iraq, thereby dooming to failure American attempts to stabilize the situation in Iraq. The resolution would practically give Ankara the moral right to ignore the American point of view, which would lead to another bloodbath in Iraq, The Guardian warns. The Washington Times, whose leading commentator is now White House press secretary, remarked with no special reverence to Congressmen that, "With the United States currently fighting a war against radical Islamists, Congress should have much more important priorities than revisiting events that occurred more than 80 years ago - particularly when doing so has the potential to do serious damage to US relations with Turkey, whose cooperation will be critical to US efforts to stabilize Iraq." "The reality is that Armenian and Greek lobbying organizations hostile to Turkey command far more power in Washington than do pro-Turkish groups. And in their effort to settle old scores dating back to World War I, they have the potential to damage our current ability to maintain Turkey's cooperation in stabilizing Iraq," The Washington Times writes. "At such a dangerous time, the United States needs to be working more closely with both our Kurdish friends in Iraq and our Turkish allies. But Mrs Pelosi seems more interested in playing ethnic politics … and winning additional votes."

The Armenian lobbyists, who are far better informed than their Yerevan compatriots about the distribution of forces in the USA, are not concealing their indignation: "Turkish feelings" have turned out to be more important for Washington than Armenians' demands for recognition of the "genocide". Harout Sassounian, publisher of The California Courier, says that American Armenians are more offended by the Bush administration's attitude towards the "Armenian genocide" than by Turkey's denial of it. They want to know, Sassounian continues capriciously, why the leaders of such an enormous country are more interested in pleasing an unreliable foreign state than their own citizens of Armenian origin, whose ancestors were victims of the "genocide". He recalls that the deputy assistant secretary of state, Matthew Bryza, answering journalists' questions on 1 February, said, "Our position is that our policy remains unchanged. We don't believe that political statements or diplomatic statements are the appropriate way to resolve this issue of how to refer to these horrible events of 1915." US Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried is quoted next: "We discussed the resolution which has been introduced about Armenian-Turkish issues, about the Armenian, what its supporters call the 'Armenian genocide'. This bill does not have the support of the administration. The administration opposes this bill. We have made that clear. We are continuing to make it clear." The American diplomat went on to say: "Our argument is essentially this. Such a resolution will damage US-Turkish relations and for no good purpose. Such a resolution would not in fact advance Turkish-Armenian dialogue." Sassounian begins his indictment of the American political elite: "Both he and Bryza seem more concerned about catering to Turkish sensitivities than the fact that an entire nation was almost wiped out. They seem to forget that this Congressional resolution has more to do with trying to reaffirm America's past acknowledgment of the 'Armenian genocide' than bringing pressure to bear upon Turkey." In this way the Armenian lobbyists in the USA are already beginning to realize that their demands are locked in a deadly embrace with the interests of the USA and resistance to the executive authorities' attempts to get the latest "Armenian resolution" through Congress should not be underestimated.