Turkey Protests House Panel Vote to Call Armenian Deaths 'Genocide'

By a narrow vote of 23 to 22, the House Foreign Affairs Committee has passed a measure calling on President Obama to characterize Turkey's killing of 1.5 million Armenians during and immediately after World War I as "genocide."

In response to the vote, the Washington Post reports, the Turkish government recalled its U.S. ambassador and warned that the move "could adversely affect our cooperation on a wide common agenda." Turkey has contributed troops to the war effort in Afghanistan and allowed the use of an air base to supply U.S. forces in Iraq. It also sits on the U.N. Security Council and will have a vote on U.S.-sought sanctions against Iran.

Turkey has long insisted that the deaths early last century were caused by forced relocations and fighting at the end of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire and were not part of a genocide campaign.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), who voted against the resolution, said he has sympathy for the victims, "but we're in the 21st century. We have troops in the field. We run the risk of losing a base of operations in Turkey."