US Senator Lindsey Graham blocked the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire adopted by the US House of Representatives, at the request of the White House representative, media reported
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th November, 2019) US Senator Lindsey Graham blocked the resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire adopted by the US House of Representatives, at the request of the White House representative, media reported.
The US House of Representatives voted on October 29 to recognize the Armenian Genocide by the Ottoman Empire in early the 20th century. The resolution passed with 405 representatives voting for and 11 against. Another vote on the same day levied an arms embargo on Turkey, passing 403-16.
Earlier this month, Graham took advantage of the rule that one senator could block the adoption of the resolution and applied it to the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, which the senior democrat Bob Menendez proposed to accept.
According to the Axios news portal, after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a senior White House official asked Graham to return to the Senate and block the resolution on the Armenian Genocide.
"After the meeting, we kind of huddled up and talked about what happened," Graham said, as quoted by the media outlet, adding that the White House legislative officer told him that Menendez was going to vote on the genocide resolution and asked Graham if he could block it.
"I said sure. The only reason I did it is because he [Erdohan] was still in town. ... That would've been poor timing. I'm trying to salvage the relationship if possible," the senator said.
At the same time, answering the question of whether he felt uncomfortable blocking this resolution, Graham answered � yes.
The recognition of the Armenian Genocide is a stumbling block in Turkey's relations with a number of countries, including the United States, where a similar resolution was adopted in October by the overwhelming majority of the House of Representatives. The resolution, debated over decades, was held in the House of Representatives amid a sharp deterioration in Washington's relations with Ankara due to Turkey's military operation in Syria.
In the late 19th-early 20th centuries, Armenians found themselves an increasingly persecuted minority within the ailing Ottoman Empire. In 1915, according to a number of historians, more than 1.5 million Armenians were killed. The fact of the Armenian people's genocide in the Ottoman Empire was recognized by 23 states, as well as the European Parliament.
Turkey has traditionally rejected the accusations of Armenian genocide and is extremely sensitive to criticism on the issue. Ankara insists on the rejection of the term "genocide" in relation to the events of 1915. Turkey also calls for the creation of an international commission of historians to study the country's archival documents to develop an objective approach to the events of World War I.
