The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives has approved a resolution recognizing the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
The panel voted 23-22 in support of the resolution following almost six hours of heated debates on Thursday.
The resolution, which has already become a diplomatic flashpoint between Washington and Ankara, has not been finally adopted and will now go before the full House, although no date has been set for the vote.
Turkey, which has always refused to recognize the killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the end of the Ottoman period in 1915 as an act of genocide, warned Washington that this move could jeopardize U.S-Turkish cooperation and set back the talks aimed at opening the border between Turkey and Armenia.
On the eve of the vote, the Obama administration urged the committee not to approve the resolution, fearing it could alienate Washington's NATO ally, whose help the White House considers invaluable in solving confrontations in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The Foreign Affairs Committee approved a similar genocide measure in 2007, and Turkey temporarily recalled its ambassador to the United States.
However, after intensive pressure by the Bush administration, the resolution was not brought to the House floor.
A number of states have recognized the killings in Armenia as the first genocide of the 20th century, including Russia, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Greece, as well as 42 of the 50 U.S. states. The Vatican, the European Parliament and the World Council of Churches have also denounced the killings as genocide. Uruguay was the first to do so in 1965.
WASHINGTON, March 5 (RIA Novosti)
