Armenian resolution likely to fail, says head of US-Turkish group

The Armenian “genocide” resolution that was narrowly endorsed by a U.S. House of Representatives panel last week is very unlikely to reach a House floor vote, according to the head of a top U.S.-Turkish business group.

“The resolution has passed the panel vote with the narrowest possible margin, and has no political credibility [in Congress],” Jim Holmes, president of the American-Turkish Council, or ATC, said on Sunday in an interview with the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

House leaders "will clearly see that they can't be successful" in a full House floor vote for the resolution's endorsement, he said.

The House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee passed the resolution on a one-vote difference last Thursday despite last-minute objections from President Barack Obama's administration.

The 23-22 vote sends the measure to the full House, forcing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to decide whether to hold a floor vote on the measure.

The non-binding resolution calls on Obama to ensure that U.S. policy formally refers to World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as "genocide" and to use that term when he delivers his annual message on the issue in April – something he avoided doing last year.


/Hurriyet Daily News/