Turkey pulls ambassador over U.S. genocide bill

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

Turkey ordered its ambassador in Washington to return to Turkey for consultations over a U.S. House panel's approval of a bill describing the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians as genocide, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said today.

The ambassador would stay in Turkey for about a week or 10 days for discussions about the measure, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Levent Bilman.

"We are not withdrawing our ambassador. We have asked him to come to Turkey for some consultations," he said. "The ambassador was given instructions to return and will come at his earliest convenience."

State Department spokesman Tom Casey, said he was unaware of Turkey's decision, but said the United States wants to continue to have good relations with Turkey.

More here.

Now, now, there, there, what's all this infighting about?

Surely, the Turks can let Congress have its little old genocide bill. I mean, the Turkish genocide against the Armenians happened a very long time ago, and Congress isn't saying a single word about Turkey's much more recent attempted genocide against the Kurds. Indeed, the US is big pals with Turkey when it comes to killing Kurds there: we helped to pay for it. Okay yeah, some of the killing was legitimate because Turkish Kurds were mounting a pretty hardcore insurrection during the 90s, but that hardly excuses the ethnic-cleansing response from the Turkish government. But hey, President Bill was just fine with all of that. He upped the arms aid massively, fully knowing how innocent Kurds were going to be massacred as a result.

See? We're all buddies here. What's the fuss? What's a little genocide between friends?

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