Turkey has recalled its ambassador to the...
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives approved on Thursday a non-binding resolution recognizing the genocide of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
"We condemn this bill that blames the Turkish nation for a crime it did not commit. Our Washington ambassador was invited to Ankara tonight for consultations," Turkey"s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said in a statement posted on his office"s website.
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, earlier 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.