Congressional panel OKs Armenian measure - Yahoo! News

Congressional panel OKs Armenian measure - Yahoo! News: "WASHINGTON - A House panel defied President Bush on Wednesday and approved a measure that he said would damage U.S. goals in the Middle East. The measure that would recognize the World War I-era killings of Armenians as a genocide had been strongly opposed by Turkey, a key NATO ally that has supported U.S. efforts in Iraq. The House Foreign Affairs Committee's 27-21 vote now sends the measure to the House floor — unless the Democratic leadership reverses course and heeds Bush's warnings. At issue is the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, says the toll has been inflated and insists that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest. Bush and other senior officials made a last-minute push to persuade lawmakers on the Foreign Affairs Committee to reject the measure. 'Its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in NATO and in the global war on terror,' Bush said hours before the vote."