Brent Scowcroft warns: Armenian genocide bills could damage US-Turkish relations

Brent Scowcroft, president of the American-Turkish Council (ATC), has written a letter to US Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert warning of possible damage to US-Turkish relations resulting from two seperate bills containing Armenian genocide allegations coming up on the US Congress agenda.It is expected that the US Congress Foreign Relations Committee will be looking at the two bills in question either today or tomorrow. It is also anticipated that the bills will pass through the Committee successfully. Scowcroft warned in his letter that the passage of these bills might well endanger the trade interests of some ATC members. Scowcroft also called on Armenian President Robert Kocharian to accept the peace offering of Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He also used his letter to call on the US to be supportive of Turkey in this period preceding the October 3 EU accession talks, recalling that Turkey's strategic placement would be important to the US for a long period of time.  Â