A US House committee vote to recognise the killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide risks damaging a process of normalization between Armenia and Turkey, Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
The vote demonstrates a lack of "strategic vision" on the part of US lawmakers, Davutoglu said in Ankara. Turkey has summoned the US ambassador in Ankara to discuss the matter, he said.
Turkey recalled its ambassador from Washington for consultations after a US House committee yesterday brushed aside concerns raised by the President Obama administration and passed a resolution calling the killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey genocide.
US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said the full House shouldn't take up the resolution because it interferes with an effort by Turkey and Armenia to normalize their relations.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the measure on a 23-22 vote. The resolution says the Ottoman Empire, the predecessor of modern-day Turkey, killed 1.5 million ethnic Armenians from 1915 to 1923.
It asks the president to ensure that US foreign policy reflects "appropriate understanding" of the atrocity and "the consequences of the failure to realize a just resolution."
Following the vote, the Turkish government said Ambassador Namik Tan would leave for Ankara, according to a statement. Turkey, a US ally, took that same step as a protest the day after a House committee approved a similar resolution in 2007.
The new resolution now goes to the Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives, which will decide whether and when to hold a full vote on the issue.
"We do not believe that the full Congress will or should vote on that resolution and we have made that clear to all the parties involved," Ms Clinton told reporters at a conference in Costa Rica yesterday.
"It's serious," Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said of the potential diplomatic damage caused by the committee vote.
"The administration did not focus on this, and the likelihood of the normalization" between Turkey and Armenia "continuing is a lot less this afternoon than it was this morning," he said yesterday.
Bloomberg