Quando a China não existia para a economia global: ‘Os donos do mundo - Alemanha, EUA, Japão‘ (1992) de Georges Valence

A estratégia chinesa do yuan arruina as finanças do Ocidente

Mi-2007 éclatait la crise des pays occidentaux. Mi-2009, ceux-ci sortaient de leur récession mais ne se débarrassaient pas pour autant de la crise qui restait la leur. Mi-2011, leur situation vient même de rebondir sous forme d'une crise conjointe de leurs finances publiques qui menace maintenant de les faire rechuter en récession...

En face, la Chine manifeste une santé insolente : trente-troisième année d'affilée sans récession, une croissance du produit intérieur brut (PIB) à 10 % l'an depuis vingt ans, un chômage qui ne cesse de reculer, des réserves de change, qui, tout compté, dépassaient déjà 4 500 milliards de dollars (3 165 milliards d'euros) à la fin du mois de juin 2011...

Ce contraste s'explique par l'énorme sous-évaluation du yuan infligée par la Chine à ses partenaires et rivaux. Grâce à un contrôle des changes draconien qui n'est accessible qu'aux Etats totalitaires, la Chine maintient le yuan à 0,15 dollar et à 0,11 euro, quand, selon le Fonds monétaire international (FMI) et l'ONU, il devrait valoir 0,25 dollar et 0,21 euro !

Les pays occidentaux sont restés totalement passifs face au cours du yuan que leur dicte la Chine. Depuis que, en 2001, ils ont admis la Chine à l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), armée de son contrôle des changes, ils se sont privés, il est vrai, de la seule arme qui pourrait la faire céder : les représailles douanières.

Il en a résulté à la fois une désindustrialisation majeure des pays occidentaux et une industrialisation intense de la Chine.

La main-d'oeuvre en Chine étant la moins chère au monde, les entreprises qui y sont basées s'emparent de parts croissantes du marché mondial tandis que les multinationales occidentales viennent concentrer leurs investissements productifs sur le territoire chinois. Ce qui renforcera encore les parts du marché mondial captées par la Chine...

Ver artigo no Le Monde

Comissária da Justiça sugere desmantelamento da Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s e Fitch

A comissária europeia para a Justiça, Viviane Reding, propôs hoje o desmantelamento das três principais agências de rating norte-americanas, a Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s e Fitch, em declarações ao jornal alemão Die Welt.

“A Europa não pode permitir que o euro seja destruído por três empresas privadas norte-americanas”, disse a comissária luxemburguesa, exigindo mais transparência e mais concorrência na avaliação de Estados pelas referidas agências.

“Só vejo duas soluções, ou os Estados do G-20 decidem desmantelar o cartel das três agências de rating norte-americanas, e de três agências fazer seis, por exemplo, ou criar agências de rating independentes na Europa e na Ásia”, acrescentou Reding.  [...]

Ver notícia no Público

EUA suspendem ajuda militar ao Paquistão

The US says it is withholding some $800m in military aid to Pakistan.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley told ABC television that Pakistan had "taken some steps that have given us reason to pause on some of the aid".

He said the US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in May had affected ties but he insisted the relationship "must be made to work over time".

The $800m (£500m) equates to about a third of the annual US security aid to Pakistan, US officials say.

In figures submitted to the International Monetary Fund last autumn, Pakistan's defence expenditure in its 2010-2011 budget was put at $6.41bn - an increase of $1.27bn on the previous year. [...]

Ver notícia na BBC

EUA e Paquistão à beira da ruptura

 Il est toujours triste de voir une histoire d’amour mal tourner, quand les espérances folles, torpillées par les trahisons secrètes, s’effondrent dans un concert de reproches. C’est précisément ce que vivent aujourd’hui les Etats-Unis et le Pakistan, et que ce soit à Washington ou à Islamabad, on se croirait un peu dans un feuilleton à l’eau de rose. "Comment ont-ils pu nous traiter de la sorte ?" Tel est le ton du débat politique dans les deux capitales. S’il s’agissait d’un couple en désamour, on lui recommanderait de prendre du recul, histoire de panser son orgueil blessé et de retrouver son équilibre. Un avis qui vaut sans doute aussi pour les Etats-Unis et le Pakistan. Ces deux pays ont été amèrement déçus par leur relation – chacun semblant incapable de comprendre ce qui déplaît à l’autre –, mais ils ont également des intérêts communs qui doivent passer avant tout le reste.
"Il y a des points de friction, mais pas de rupture", commente Husain Haqqani, ambassadeur du Pakistan à Washington, qui n’a pas ménagé ses efforts pour éviter la cassure, allant jusqu’à défier les militaires d’Islamabad. Du côté des décideurs américains, nombreux sont ceux qui approuveraient ses propos. Passée la période de recul, la relation ne sera plus la même – avec davantage de respect pour l’indépendance pakistanaise. C’est une bonne chose, même du point de vue des intérêts américains. L’étreinte des Etats-Unis devenait étouffante, et l’armée pakistanaise était considérée par son opinion publique comme un laquais de Washington. C’était une source croissante de honte et d’indignation nationale, comparables à la colère qui a causé la chute d’Hosni Moubarak en Egypte. [...]

Ver notícia no Courrier International

Os principais orçamentos militares a nível mundial

On June 8th China's top military brass confirmed that the country's first aircraft carrier, a refurbishment of an old Russian carrier, will be ready shortly. Only a handful of nations operate carriers, which are costly to build and maintain. Indeed, Britain has recently decommissioned its sole carrier because of budget pressures. China's defence spending has risen by nearly 200% since 2001 to reach an estimated $119 billion in 2010—though it has remained fairly constant in terms of its share of GDP. America's own budget crisis is prompting tough discussions about its defence spending, which, at nearly $700 billion, is bigger than that of the next 17 countries combined.

Ver notícia no The Economist

Quando a China se tornar o nº 1

How will it feel when China becomes the world’s largest economy? We may find out quite soon. A few weeks ago, the International Monetary Fund issued a report that suggested China would be number one within five years.

The projection that the Chinese economy will be larger than that of the US by 2016 included adjustments for the domestic purchasing power of the two countries’ currencies. Some regard this interpretation of IMF data as a dubious move that artificially boosts the size of the Chinese economy. But even using real exchange rates does not defer the day when America is knocked off its perch by very much. A projection by The Economist, made just before Christmas, foresaw China becoming number one in 2019.The ascent of China will change ideas of what it means to be a superpower. Over the course of the American century, the world has got used to the idea that the world’s largest economy was also the world’s most obviously affluent nation. The world’s biggest economy housed the world’s richest people.
As China emerges as an economic superpower, the connection between national and personal affluence is being broken. China is both richer and poorer than the western world. It is sitting on foreign reserves worth $3,000bn. And yet, measured at current exchange rates, the average American is about 10 times as wealthy as the average Chinese.
The relative affluence of US society is one reason why China will not become the world’s most powerful country on the day that it becomes the largest economy. The world’s habit of looking to the US as the “sole superpower” also makes it likely that America’s political dominance will outlast its economic supremacy. America has an entrenched position in global institutions. It matters that the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank are all situated in the US – and that Nato is built around America.
The US military has a global reach and a technological sophistication that China is nowhere near matching. The US is also ahead on soft power. China, as yet, has no equivalents to Hollywood, Silicon Valley or “the American dream”. [...]

Ver notícia no Financial Times

A agenda Obama de ‘liberdade na Net‘ está a virar-se contra os EUA?

On Thursday, President Obama declared access to social networks to be a “universal” value, right alongside freedom of speech. But when those networks helped weaken Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, one of the U.S.’ strongest allies in the Middle East, the Obama team demanded Mubarak turn the Egyptian Internet back on — but didn’t abandon support for him, either. Maybe this “Internet Freedom Agenda” wasn’t so well thought out?
For more than a year, the White House has been pushing the idea that online connections are a good thing — no matter what’s said using those tools. It’s a way of signaling to wired people, not just governments, that the U.S. is on their side. The Obama administration called for Twitter to stay online during 2009 protests in Iran, and U.S. cash for new social networks like Pakistan’s Humari Awaz and SMS relief webs for Haitian earthquake victims. “The very existence of social networks,” State Department tech adviser Alec Ross said, “is a net good.”
Now comes the test. The Internet Freedom Agenda may have just undermined an ugly pillar of the U.S.’ Mideast strategy — supporting dictators — without doing much to aid the discontented millions that might replace it. While Obama tepidly calls on Mubarak to let people keep tweeting, Egyptian protesters may want the U.S. ”to completely get out of the picture,” as one told al-Jazeera. “Just cut aid to Mubarak immediately and withdraw backing from him, withdraw from all Middle Eastern bases, and stop supporting the state of Israel.”

Ver artigo na Wired

Entrevista com Nouriel Roubini: A Europa tem de crescer para evitar o colapso do Euro

Europe, says star economist Nouriel Roubini, needs to take immediate action to shore up the euro. In an interview with SPIEGEL, Roubini said Germany must provide more money to defend the common currency and allow the European Central Bank to loosen monetary policy. Otherwise, disaster could be looming.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Roubini, when you recently acquired a new penthouse in Manhattan for $5.5 million observers on both sides of the Atlantic hailed it as a sign: The man who predicted the financial crisis had regained confidence in the US housing market and in the US economy.

Roubini: There's a bit of good news -- and a lot of bad news. In 2011, the US economy will likely grow by 2.7 percent. That's a robust rate of growth. The risk of a second slump has dropped considerably. The US Federal Reserve's policy of buying government bonds and the middle-class tax benefits of the Obama administration are already having an effect. That's the good news.

SPIEGEL: And the bad news?

Roubini: The persisting housing crisis, the implications of this on the financial condition of banks and, above all, the high public debt and deficit, both at the federal and state levels. The US is in a dilemma. In the medium term, there is no getting around budget consolidation, otherwise the country will be threatened by a debt crisis such as Europe is currently experiencing. However, given the weak recovery so far, the US must do all it can to boost economic growth.

SPIEGEL: Tax cuts for the super rich, which are part of President Barack Obama's tax package, are hardly going to create additional growth.

Roubini: And that's the heart of the problem. The plan is a complete waste of money. It's going to increase the deficit without doing anything to kick-start the economy. And, unfortunately, I don't see any chance of this fiscal stalemate changing significantly before the presidential elections in 2012. The White House and the Republican majority in Congress block each other's proposals, and there is no such thing as bipartisan crisis management in the US. I'm sure that the public debt of the US will eventually make the markets very nervous in the next few years [...].

Ver notícia no Der Spiegel

Os ‘danos colaterais‘ dos ficheiros WikiLeaks

As recentes revelações do site WikiLeaks têm potencialmente várias implicações significativas para a diplomacia norte-americana e para os seus aliados (naturalmente também para os inimigos dos EUA – veja-se, por exemplo, os casos das revelações sobre os programas nucleares do Irão e da Coreia do Norte e dos receios que estes geram a nível do Médio Oriente e do Sudeste Asiático). Para uma parte significativa da opinião pública internacional provavelmente até reforçam a convicção da perfídia da política externa norte-americana. Esta será delineada nos bastidores, através de  manobras mais ou menos obscuras e de espionagem, sendo largamente amoral, apesar do discurso oficial invocar cinicamente princípios e valores, como a democracia e os direitos humanos. Alguns encontrarão mesmo aí argumentos adicionais para sustentar teorias da conspiração sobre a actuação dos EUA em acontecimentos marcantes da história do século XX e início do século XXI (o ataque japonês a Pearl Harbour, o assassinato de John Kennedy, o 11 de Setembro...). Todavia,  o pior impacto para os EUA nem é tanto o de potenciar essa imagem negativa na opinião publica internacional, o que em si mesmo já não é pouco. Também não decorre de terem vindo a público alguns comentários mais ácidos, ou até jocosos, de diplomatas norte-americanos sobre dirigentes políticos de países aliados europeus e não europeus, os quais se encontram em vários telegramas diplomáticos. Nem resulta da revelação de manobras de bastidores para obter informações, eticamente questionáveis, e que, agora, acabaram por se tornar públicas. Na verdade estas manobras já se imaginam existir nalgum tipo de diplomacia e de "jogos de poder", não sendo a sua revelação  uma surpresa, a não ser para os que não têm qualquer ideia do que é a política internacional. Passado o furor revelações dos ficheiros WikiLeaks nos media, o impacto negativo mais duradouro e difícil de apagar, será, certamente, o que está associado, na percepção de amigos e aliados, a uma enorme falha de segurança. Esta não permitiu manter a confidencialidade sobre as informações recolhidas pelos seus meios diplomáticos e salvaguardar também os "informantes". (Curiosa é a forma relativamente simples como as informações reveladas pelo Wikileaks poderão ter sido obtidas por Julian Assange, o australiano que é o  rosto desta organização e se afirma dedicado à missão da “transparência”. Embora a origem não seja oficialmente conhecida, os mais de 250.000 ficheiros agora revelados poderão ter sido também subtraídos pelo jovem militar, Bradley Manning, já anteriormente detido por suspeita de ter sido responsável pelas revelações de documentos feitas no site WikiLeaks, relativas ao Afeganistão e ao Iraque). Assim, pelo menos nos tempos mais próximos, este ”vazamento de informações” na praça pública irá dificultar muito o trabalho dos seus diplomatas no terreno. Face a esta quebra de confiança na capacidade de sigilo diplomático da principal potência mundial, a recolha de muitas informações fundamentais para o trabalho político-diplomático tornar-se-à particularmente difícil, se não mesmo impossível nalgumas situações. Este é um “dano colateral” que a administração Obama terá  dificuldade em reparar e cujas consequências políticas e estratégicas podem ser grandes nos próximos anos.

A maior divulgação da história de documentos diplomáticos secretos feita Wikileaks

El País, en colaboración con otros diarios de Europa y Estados Unidos, revela el contenido de la mayor filtración de documentos secretos a la que jamás se haya tenido acceso en toda la historia. Se trata de una colección de más de 250.000 mensajes del Departamento de Estado de Estados Unidos, obtenidos por la página digital Wikileaks, en los que se descubren episodios inéditos ocurridos en los puntos más conflictivos del mundo, así como otros muchos sucesos y datos de gran relevancia que desnudan por completo la política exterior norteamericana, sacan a la luz sus mecanismos y sus fuentes, dejan en evidencia sus debilidades y obsesiones, y en conjunto facilitan la comprensión por parte de los ciudadanos de las circunstancias en las que se desarrolla el lado oscuro de las relaciones internacionales. [...]

Ver notícia no El País

Como Obama perdeu a sua magia

The real story in this election is not that America has no jobs, that the economy continues to falter or that the national debt continues to balloon. While all three are true and, more importantly, Obama has failed to fix them, it is also true that these conditions existed prior to Obama's election. Yet somehow his personal charisma and captivating charm elevated the electorate.
The real story of campaign 2010 is how boring Obama has become.Obama, who had never run anything except a campaign in his entire life, performed an almost unprecedented conjuring act in 2008, getting the electorate to embrace him regardless of the utter absence of managerial skills.
They believed not necessarily in Obama's capacity to fix America's transient problems but in his ability to focus us on more eternal, upbeat themes like hope, faith and the future. Yet, this time his very presence seems irritating. A man whose oratory lifted him to earth's highest office can't seem to deliver a single uplifting speech.
As a connoisseur of great oratory, I used to love hearing Obama's staccato delivery, perfect timing and mesmeric self-confidence -- the mark of any great speaker -- even as I disagreed with him on many of the issues. But Obama's speeches have now become insufferable, devoid of charisma and personal magnetism. [...]

Ver notícia na AOLNews

Como parar uma guerra cambial

In recent weeks the world economy has been on a war footing, at least rhetorically. Ever since Brazil’s finance minister, Guido Mantega, declared on September 27th that an “international currency war” had broken out, the global economic debate has been recast in battlefield terms, not just by excitable headline-writers, but by officials themselves. Gone is the fuzzy rhetoric about co-operation to boost global growth. A more combative tone has taken hold. Countries blame each other for distorting global demand, with weapons that range from quantitative easing (printing money to buy bonds) to currency intervention and capital controls.
Behind all the smoke and fury, there are in fact three battles. The biggest one is over China’s unwillingness to allow the yuan to rise more quickly. American and European officials have sounded tougher about the “damaging dynamic” caused by China’s undervalued currency. Last month the House of Representatives passed a law allowing firms to seek tariff protection against countries with undervalued currencies, with a huge bipartisan majority. China’s “unfair” trade practices have become a hot topic in the mid-term elections.
A second flashpoint is the rich world’s monetary policy, particularly the prospect that central banks may soon restart printing money to buy government bonds. The dollar has fallen as financial markets expect the Federal Reserve to act fastest and most boldly. The euro has soared as officials at the European Central Bank show least enthusiasm for such a shift. In China’s eyes (and, sotto voce, those of many other emerging-market governments), quantitative easing creates a gross distortion in the world economy as investors rush elsewhere, especially into emerging economies, in search of higher yields. [...]

Ver artigo no The Economist

Uma guerra comercial com a China?

No one familiar with the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 should relish the prospect of a trade war with China -- but that seems to be where we're headed and is probably where we should be headed. Although the Smoot-Hawley tariff did not cause the Great Depression, it contributed to its severity by provoking widespread retaliation. Confronting China's export subsidies risks a similar tit-for-tat cycle at a time when the global economic recovery is weak. This is a risk, unfortunately, we need to take.

In a decade, China has gone from a huge, poor nation to an economic colossus. Although its per capita income ($6,600 in 2009) is only one-seventh that of the United States ($46,400), the sheer size of its economy gives it a growing global influence. China passed Japan this year as the second-largest national economy. In 2009, it displaced Germany as the biggest exporter and also became the world's largest energy user.

The trouble is that China has never genuinely accepted the basic rules governing the world economy. China follows those rules when they suit its interests and rejects, modifies or ignores them when they don't. Every nation, including the United States, would like to do the same, and most have tried. What's different is that most other countries support the legitimacy of the rules -- often requiring the sacrifice of immediate economic self-interest -- and none is as big as China. Their departures from norms don't threaten the entire system.

China's worst abuse involves its undervalued currency and its promotion of export-led economic growth. The United States isn't the only victim. China's underpricing of exports and overpricing of imports hurt most trading nations, from Brazil to India. From 2006 to 2010, China's share of world exports jumped from 7 percent to 10 percent.

One remedy would be for China to revalue its currency, reducing the competitiveness of its exports. American presidents have urged this for years. The Chinese acknowledge that they need stronger domestic spending but seem willing to let the renminbi (RMB) appreciate only if it doesn't really hurt their exports. Thus, the appreciation of about 20 percent permitted from mid-2005 to mid-2008 was largely offset by higher productivity (aka, more efficiency) that lowered costs. China halted even this when the global economy crashed and has only recently permitted the currency to rise. In practice, the RMB has barely budged. [...]

Ver notícia no Rear Clear Politics

Protestos contra Obama (foto do jornal Guardian)

Obama: o risco de falhanço no Afeganistão e no Iraque

Barack Obama is caught in a Catch-22 situation: If America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq fail, they will overshadow any of his domestic achievements. The end game in the leadership role of the United States in the world began long ago. Can the Afghanistan conference deliver a breakthrough?

There is a name that is now being mentioned frequently in the debate over America's wars, a name that does not bode well for US President Barack Obama: Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States. Johnson, who, like Obama, was both a Democrat and an energetic reformer, ultimately failed because of an overseas war being fought by US troops. The Vietnam War prevented Johnson from being remembered as one of the most prominent US presidents in the history of the 20th century. [...]

Ver artigo no Der Spiegel

EUA planeiam escudo contra ciberataques

The federal government is launching an expansive program dubbed "Perfect Citizen" to detect cyber assaults on private companies and government agencies running such critical infrastructure as the electricity grid and nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the program.

The surveillance by the National Security Agency, the government's chief eavesdropping agency, would rely on a set of sensors deployed in computer networks for critical infrastructure that would be triggered by unusual activity suggesting an impending cyber attack, though it wouldn't persistently monitor the whole system, these people said.

Defense contractor Raytheon Corp. recently won a classified contract for the initial phase of the surveillance effort valued at up to $100 million, said a person familiar with the project.

An NSA spokeswoman said the agency had no information to provide on the program. A Raytheon spokesman declined to comment.

Some industry and government officials familiar with the program see Perfect Citizen as an intrusion by the NSA into domestic affairs, while others say it is an important program to combat an emerging security threat that only the NSA is equipped to provide.

"The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government...feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security," said one internal Raytheon email, the text of which was seen by The Wall Street Journal. "Perfect Citizen is Big Brother." [...]

Ver notícia no Wall Street Journal

‘Confusos sobre o Irão‘ in Washington Post

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was the focus of one of those curious Washington kerfuffles over the weekend in which a senior official makes headlines by saying what everyone knows to be true. According to the New York Times, Mr. Gates dispatched a secret memo to the White House in January pointing out that the Obama administration does not have a well-prepared strategy in place for the likely eventuality that Iran will continue to pursue a nuclear weapon and will not be diverted by negotiations or sanctions. Mr. Gates quickly denied that his memo was intended as a "wake-up call," as one unnamed official quoted by the Times called it. And that's probably true: It is evident to any observer that the administration lacks a clear backup plan.

President Obama's official position is that "all options are on the table," including the use of force. But senior officials regularly talk down the military option in public -- thereby undermining its utility even as an instrument of intimidation. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered more reassurance to Iran on Sunday, saying in a forum at Columbia University that "I worry . . . about striking Iran. I've been very public about that because of the unintended consequences."

Adm. Mullen appeared to equate those consequences with those of Iran obtaining a weapon. "I think Iran having a nuclear weapon would be incredibly destabilizing. I think attacking them would also create the same kind of outcome," he was quoted as saying. Yet Israel and other countries in the region would hardly regard those "outcomes" as similar.

We are not advocating strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. But the public signs of the administration's squishiness about military options are worrisome because of the lack of progress on its two-track strategy of offering negotiations and threatening sanctions. A year-long attempt at engagement failed; now the push for sanctions is proceeding at a snail's pace. Though administration officials say they have made progress in overcoming resistance from Russia and China, it appears a new U.N. sanctions resolution might require months more of dickering. Even then it might only be a shell intended to pave the way for ad hoc actions by the United States and European Union, which would require further diplomacy.

And what would sanctions accomplish? Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the Financial Times last week that "maybe . . . that would lead to the kind of good-faith negotiations that President Obama called for 15 months ago." Yet the notion that the hard-line Iranian clique now in power would ever negotiate in good faith is far-fetched. More likely -- and desirable -- would be a victory by the opposition Green movement in Iran's ongoing domestic power struggle. But the administration has so far shrunk from supporting sanctions, such as a gasoline embargo. that might heighten popular anger against the regime.

All this probably explains why Mr. Gates, in his own words, "presented a number of questions and proposals intended to contribute to an orderly and timely decision making process."

"There should be no confusion by our allies and adversaries," he added, "that the United States is . . . prepared to act across a broad range of contingencies in support of our interests." If allies and adversaries are presently confused, that would be understandable.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/19/AR2010041904363_pf.html

‘Comissão do Congresso dos EUA reconhece o genocídio arménio‘ in BBC

A US congressional panel has described the killing of Armenians by Turkish forces during World War I as genocide, despite White House objections.

The resolution was narrowly approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Turkey, a key US ally, responded by recalling its ambassador in Washington for consultations. It has fiercely opposed the non-binding resolution.

The White House had warned that the vote would harm reconciliation talks between Turkey and Armenia.

The resolution calls on President Barack Obama to ensure that US foreign policy reflects an understanding of the "genocide" and to label the World War I killings as such in his annual statement on the issue.

It was approved by 23 votes to 22 by the committee.

Within minutes the Turkish government issued a statement condemning "this resolution which accuses the Turkish nation of a crime it has not committed".

The statement also said the Turkish ambassador was being recalled for consultations.

A Turkish parliamentary delegation had gone to Washington to try to persuade committee members to reject the resolution.

'Too important'

In 2007, a similar resolution passed the committee stage, but was shelved before a House vote after pressure from the George W Bush administration.

During his election campaign Mr Obama promised to brand the mass killings genocide.

Before the vote, committee chairman Howard Berman urged fellow members of the committee to endorse the resolution.

"I believe that Turkey values its relationship with the United States at least as much as we value our relations with Turkey," he said.

The Turks, he added, "fundamentally agree that the US-Turkish alliance is simply too important to get side-tracked by a non-binding resolution passed by the House of Representatives".

In October last year, Turkey and Armenia signed a historic accord normalising relations between them after a century of hostility.

Armenia wants Turkey to recognise the killings as an act of genocide, but successive Turkish governments have refused to do so.

Hundreds of thousands of Armenians died in 1915, when they were deported en masse from eastern Anatolia by the Ottoman Empire. They were killed by troops or died from starvation and disease.

Armenians have campaigned for the killings to be recognised internationally as genocide - and more than 20 countries have done so.

Turkish officials accept that atrocities were committed but argue they were part of the war and that there was no systematic attempt to destroy the Christian Armenian people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8550765.stm