Two U.S. lawmakers of the Democratic Party on Tuesday urged House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi not to vote on a resolution branding the killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1917 a "genocide."
Alcee Hastings, chairman of the House Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and John Tanner, chairman of the House NATO Parliamentary Assembly, made the appeal in a letter to Pelosi.
Passing the resolution by the full House of Representatives "would have serious consequences for the United States' important relationship with modern-day Turkey, a strong NATO ally," they said in the letter.
U.S. media reports have reported that a full House of Representatives vote on the resolution is expected next month.
The Bush administration has urged the Democrats-controlled House of Representatives not to vote on the resolution, which was already passed by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Turkey has condemned the "genocide" bill and recalled its ambassador to Washington back to Turkey for consultation over the matter, a sign of exasperated U.S.-Turkey tension over the issue.
Armenians claim that more than 1.5 million Armenians were killed in a systematic genocide in the hands of the Ottomans during World War I, before modern Turkey was born in 1923. But Turkey insists the Armenians were victims of widespread chaos and governmental breakdown as the 600-year-old empire collapsed in they ears before 1923.
Source: Xinhua
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