Gul: Unfortunately, Some Politicians In United States Have Once Again Sacrificed Important Matters To Petty Domestic Politics

ANKARA - "Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once again sacrificed important matters to petty domestic politics in spite of calls to common sense," Turkish President Abdullah Gul said late on Wednesday.
President Gul told the A.A after the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the bill regarding Armenian allegations on the incidents of 1915, "this attitude does not befit representatives of such a great power like the United States. This unacceptable decision, like the similar ones in the past, has validity and respectability for Turkish people."

-GOVERNMENT'S VIEW-
Meanwhile, the Turkish government said in a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "our government regrets and condemns this decision. It is unacceptable that the Turkish nation has been accused of something that never happened in the past."
"The committee's approval of this resolution was an irresponsible move, which at a greatly sensitive time will make relations with a friend and ally, and a strategic partnership nurtured over generations, more difficult," it said.
Pointing out that the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the bill describing the Ottoman Empire's decision to relocate part of Armenians because of their collaboration with occupation forces as "genocide", the government said, "the 1915 incidents have still been discussed by historians. A number of renown historians from different countries assess the Ottoman Empire's relocation decision as a warfare security measure taken during the World War I. It is blatantly obvious that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs does not have a task or function to rewrite history by distorting a matter which specifically concerns the common history of Turks and Armenians. Parliaments are obliged to further improve relations between peoples and concentrate on the future, instead of the past."
"Turkey has been advocating for years that the disputed periods in the history should be dealt by historians, not by legislative organs. In 2005, we proposed Armenia to set up a joint commission to examine documents in archives. Armenia has not yet given a positive response to our offer. We note that Armenia pursued an intentional agenda about approval of the bill instead of accepting our sincere proposal," it said.
"Our government regrets and condemns this decision. It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which was never committed by the Turkish nation. We hope that the U.S. House of Representatives will act with common-sense and refrain from taking further similar steps. Turkey will expend all kinds of efforts to prevent approval of the bill by the full House of Representatives," the government added.
(UK-ULG)