KEY POINTS:
ANKARA - Turkey's powerful military chief says if the US Congress approved a resolution branding the 1915 killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks genocide ties between the Nato allies would never be the same again.
Ankara is a crucial ally for Washington which relies on
Turkey as a logistical base for the war in Iraq.
Some analysts believe the vote could weaken Washington's influence over Turkey and increase the likelihood of a Turkish incursion into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish separatist rebels who use the territory to stage attacks into Turkey.
"If the resolution that has passed in the US committee is accepted by the assembly of the House of Representatives our military relations with the United States can never be the same again," chief of General Staff, General Yasar Buyukanit, told newspaper Milliyet.
The top Democrat in the House of Representatives said on Sunday she intended to press ahead with the resolution, despite White House concerns it would damage relations with Turkey.
"I said if it passed the committee that we would bring it to the floor," House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview on ABC television's "This Week".
The Turkish government is to seek approval from parliament this week for a major operation against separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants based in the Iraqi mountains.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Saturday she had urged the Turkish government to refrain from any major military operation in northern Iraq. US officials fear such a move could destabilise a relatively peaceful area of Iraq.
Turkish artillery fired seven to eight shells into a village in northern Iraq late on Saturday, witnesses said, the latest bout of shelling of the mountainous border area where separatist guerrillas are believed to hide out.
Ankara recalled its ambassador from the United States for consultations after the US congressional committee vote, which was condemned in predominantly Muslim but secular Turkey.
The House of Representatives is due to vote on the symbolic measure, sponsored by a California lawmaker whose district has a large Armenian-American constituency, by mid-November.
Republicans on Sunday called on Pelosi to block the measure.
US President George W. Bush voiced his concerns last week, saying: "This resolution is not the right response to these historic mass killings, and its passage would do great harm to our relations with a key ally in Nato and in the global war on terror."
Potential retaliatory moves by Turkey could include blocking US access to the Incirlik air base, cancelling procurement contracts, denying airspace to US aircraft and halting joint military exercises, diplomats say.
"I'm the chief of General Staff. I deal with security issues, I'm not a politician ... in this respect the United States has shot itself in the foot," Buyukanit said.
Turkey rejects the Armenian position, backed by many Western historians and some foreign parliaments, that up to 1.5 million Armenians suffered genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks.
Turkey says many Muslim Turks died alongside Christian Armenians in inter-ethnic conflict in World War One.
Patriarch Mesrob II, the Istanbul-based spiritual leader of Turkey's Armenians, was quoted by state-run Anatolian news agency as saying his community opposed the US bill. He has long called for dialogue to deal with past injustices.
Two senior US officials visited Ankara on Saturday for talks with Turkish officials to try to ease tensions.
- REUTERS
