Turkey's president warned U.S. President George W. Bush in a letter Tuesday that passage of a congressional bill recognizing the World War I mass killings of Armenians as genocide would harm ties between the two allies.
President Abdullah Gul warned of "serious troubles in the two countries' relations" if U.S. lawmakers pass the bill. The U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee is expected to consider the legislation Wednesday.
Armenians say more than 1.5 million people were killed from 1915-17 in a systematic genocide of Armenians waged during the Ottoman Empire before the birth of modern Turkey in 1923.
The Turks refuse to call it genocide, saying the Armenians were the victims of widespread chaos and political upheaval as the 600-year-old empire collapsed — not genocide.
In recent years, Armenia has sought international recognition of the killings as genocide, and France is among countries that have declared the deaths genocide.
The Bush administration opposes a U.S. bill seeking to declare the deaths genocide, and has been pressing Congress to reject the measure, which would have no binding effect on U.S. foreign policy.
But its supporters appear to have enough votes to win approval by both the Foreign Affairs Committee and the full House.
Turkish officials warned that such a bill could have negative consequences for Washington — including a chill its relations with the key NATO ally and implications some hinted could affect the U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After France voted last year to make it a crime to deny the killings were genocide, the Turkish government ended its military ties with that country.
Polls show the United States already is unpopular in Turkey due to widespread opposition to U.S. policy in Iraq.
Many in the U.S. fear that a larger public backlash in Turkey if the bill passes could lead the government to restrict crucial supply routes through Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan — and close Incirlik, a strategic Turkish air base used by the United States.
"There are risks," Foreign Minister Ali Babacan warned. "There would be a change in the way the United States is perceived in Turkey."
He pressed Israel, during a meeting with the Israeli foreign minister, to use its influence on Washington to stop the legislation.
"The perception in Turkey right now is that the Jewish people ... and the Armenian Diaspora, the Armenian lobbies, are now hand-in-hand trying to defame Turkey, and trying to condemn Turkey and the Turkish people," he told the Jerusalem Post in an interview published Tuesday.
"If something goes wrong in Washington, D.C., it inevitably will have some influence on relations between Turkey and the U.S., plus the relations between Turkey and Israel as well," he said.
Experts say passage of the U.S. bill also could trigger another key development: a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq, where separatist Kurdish rebels waging a decades-long battle with the Turkish government have bases.
Ihsan Dagi of Middle East Technical University said concerns about U.S.-Turkish relations may have kept Ankara from pursuing a cross-border operation into northern Iraq.
"However, if the Armenian genocide resolution passes, that will be the moment when relations between Turkey and the United States collapse. The possibility of an operation will increase," Dagi said. "The constraint of maintaining good relations with the United States will be removed."
Washington has urged Turkey to restrain from unilateral military operations for fear that it might spark chaos across Iraq's relatively calm north.
In Ankara, the U.S. Embassy warned that the resolution could spark demonstrations and anti-American anger across Turkey. The embassy warned American citizens to be vigilant if the Armenia bill passes.
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