[JURIST] Turkish foreign minister Abdullah Gul [official profile] said Wednesday that a proposed resolution [text, PDF] by the US Congress condemning the mass killings [BBC backgrounder] of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1917 as "genocide" would damage US-Turkish relations. Turkey has maintained that the deaths do not amount to genocide [JURIST comment] and has recently objected to similiar legislation or proposed legislation in Argentina and France [JURIST reports].

Gul met with State Department [official website] officials on Tuesday, saying that the House resolution may threaten Turkey's cooperation with the US on issues such as Iraq. The Bush Administration has promised to work with Congress to avoid the resolution. AP has more.