Azerbaijan, Baku, March 5 / Trend /
U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Thursday adopted 23 votes to 22 a resolution recognizing the so-called "Armenian genocide," CNN Turk reported.
Adoption of the resolution does not mean the final acceptance - the document as approved, would then proceed to the consideration by the full House of Representatives.
The idea of bringing the question into debate was made by chairman of the committee on foreign affairs of the U.S. Congress Howard Berman. Three Armenian and eight Turkish MPs are watching the discussions.
Prior to discussions, the U.S. President Barack Obama advised Congress not to adopt resolution on genocide, CNN Turk reported.
Armenia claims that the Ottoman Empire committed "genocide" against Armenians living in Anatolia in 1915. Making greater efforts to promote the issue internationally, Armenians have achieved its recognition by parliaments of some countries.
Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a telephone conversation with the chairman of the committee on foreign affairs of the U.S. Congress said that the adoption of resolution jeopardizes the Armenian-Turkish protocols.
In a telephone conversation with his American counterpart Barack Obama, Turkish President Abdullah Gul said Washington should not allow the relations between the U.S. and Turkey to be damaged on the backdrop of their peak of development, the Turkish media reported.
In his turn, President Obama has called on Turkey to speed up the ratification process of the Armenian-Turkish protocols.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Foreign Minister of Turkey Ahmet Davutoglu urged the U.S. not to risk the progress made in resolving the Armenian-Turkish relations, considering this issue.
"The United States has now two options: to turn all the progress made in relations between Turkey and Armenia and in general in the South Caucasus to no, or to continue promoting the peace process in the region, said Davutoglu. - We think they will choose the second option."
Turkey and Armenia signed two protocols on October 10, 2009 to normalize relations between the two countries.
After his official visit to Moscow, the Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in Ankara in December that this process is directly related to the solution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, despite that some people have argued that the Turkish-Armenian relations are separate from the Nagorno-Karabakh.