A United States congressional committee voted on Thursday to brand the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide – despite strong opposition from the White House.

In his election campaign President Obama promised to pin the genocide tag on the 1915-1918 mass killings. But now the Obama administration says the circumstances have changed. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged the house committee not to go ahead with a vote, claiming it would harm a budding reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia.

Three years ago, a similar committee resolution was shelved in response to pressure from George W. Bush’s administration. It remains to be seen whether the issue will actually get as far as a vote in Congress this time. Analyst Henri Barkey, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, is sceptical.

“In 2007 we were exactly where we are today. The same committee passed a resolution, but Congress ultimately did not. And Turkish-American relations did very well in the intervening two years. So it’s a little bit up to the Turks whether they want to ratchet up the level of outrage against the United States, because we’ve seen in the past that we can survive this.”

Fury
According to Mr Barkey, Turkey would be ill-advised to escalate the situation – perhaps by reducing its cooperation with the United States on the use of its Incirlik airbase to supply troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nevertheless, Turkey has responded with customary fury and promptly recalled its ambassador. “We condemn this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of a crime it has not committed,” said the Turkish government in a statement.

Armenia has welcomed the Congress committee vote describing it as “another proof of the devotion of the American people to universal human values” and “an important step toward the prevention of crimes against humanity.”

Nobody disputes that many Armenians died at the hands of Ottoman Turks during the First World War. But Armenia describes the killing as an orchestrated genocide of up to 1.5 million people. Turkey, on the other hand, says there were killings on both sides during what was a civil war as the Ottoman Empire collapsed. It puts the number of Armenian deaths at fewer than half a million. The Turkish government's position has the backing of all political parties and is the standard version of history in every Turkish schoolbook.

Honour
The United States has long condemned the 1915-1918 killings, but has never officially used the word genocide to describe them. So why do Turkey and Armenia place so much emphasis on the use of the ‘G’ word? It’s a question of national honour, says Henri Barkey.

“The Turks would then be labelled as the country that committed the first genocide in the 20th century. They’d be in the same boat as Nazi Germany, and nobody would like to be in that category. So in that sense, it’s an insult to their self-esteem.”

Turkey and Armenia have finally been moving towards a normal state of relations despite their contradictory versions of early 20th century history. In October last year they signed a protocol for normalising relations. The two countries agreed that the dispute should be decided by historians on the basis of both Turkish and Armenian archive material. But according to RNW's correspondent in Istanbul, Dorian Jones, this is not as simple as it sounds.

“Many Armenians, and the Armenian government, say there isn’t anything to discuss. This genocide occurred and why should we need to talk about it? It’s like saying ‘Why would the Israelis ever agree to sit down with the Germans to discuss whether a genocide happened?’ The world recognises this, and so should Turkey.”

Nervous
Turkey has good reason to be nervous, says Dorian Jones. The huge Armenian diaspora is a powerful lobby group. “Getting countries around the world to come to their point of view that a genocide occurred is their number one issue, and they campaign systematically around the world, particularly in the US.”

The speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, from a state with a major Armenian lobby, California, is committed to supporting attempts to recognise the genocide. And the White House may have backpedalled on applying the genocide label to its key NATO ally due to a “change of circumstances”, but this doesn’t change the fact that in 2008 Barack Obama made it clear he planned to recognise the genocide.

Meanwhile, argues Henri Barkey, Turkey does itself no favours politically by liberally applying the word genocide in its condemnation of a range of recent events.

“Many American congressmen were very upset at the way the Turks have been accusing everybody of committing genocide. Two hundred people get killed in Xinjiang, it’s a genocide. Four hundred Azeris in Armenia, that’s a genocide. Twenty-five Palestinians got killed in Jenin, that was a genocide. If the Turks roll out the genocide accusation continually, they should be very careful.”