The Armenian lobby in US managed to add an amendment to the House of Representatives US$19.4 billion 2005 foreign aid package. The lobby’s amendment would ban foreign aid from being used against so-called Armenian genocide lobby activities.
Speaker of the House Dennis Hasters stressed yesterday that the Republicans in the House were against the amendment that was appended to the foreign aid bill at the last minute. Hasters added that US President George W. Bush also objects to this initiative and that several members of the House will insist on discarding the article from the final text.
One of the leaders of the Armenian lobby, Democrat Party California Representative Adam Schiff, prepared the amendment that envisages not allowing American foreign aid to be used against the activities of the so-called Armenian genocide lobby. The American Armenian National Congress describes this development as a “strong success against Turkey’s campaign for denial of the genocide.”
Approval of the bill is difficult
Hasters pointed out that using American aid for lobbying is banned anyway in accordance with US laws and therefore, he emphasized, the Armenian motion is “meaningless”.
“We have great relations with Turkey and we should not let these be destroyed because of a poorly written and meaningless motion,” Hasters said.
In order for a bill to be adopted in the US Congress both the House and Senate need to approve identical versions of the bill; however, in this particular case it will be near impossible to achieve as many similar motions have been shot down in the past. Even if the foreign aid package were approved with the ‘genocide’ amendment, the US President could always exercise his veto power.
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