Turkey, as expected, reacted harshly to a resolution approved by congressional panel on Wednesday calling the slaughter of more than 1 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire "genocide." The House Committee on Foreign Affairs voted 27-21 in favor of the bill sure to anger Turkey, and despite Bush's strong opposition over concerns its will undermine US policies in the Middle East and the war effort in Iraq, where US troops depend on the shipment of equipment and supplies through Turkey.

"Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once again sacrificed important matters to petty domestic politics despite all calls to common sense," President Abdullah Gul said late Wednesday.

Angering the key NATO ally could lead to restrictions on crucial military supply routes to Iraq and Afghanistan, and the closure of the U.S. Air Force base at Incirlik.

"It is not possible to accept such an accusation of a crime which was never committed by the Turkish nation," a statement by the Turkish government said. "It is blatantly obvious that the House Committee on Foreign Affairs does not have a task or function to re-write history by distorting a matter which specifically concerns the common history of Turks and Armenians."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top US lawmaker, plans on bringing the resolution for a full vote before the House of Representatives, but no date has been set, a spokesman from her office said. The Senate is considering a similar resolution to label as genocide the killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.

To date twenty-one countries have officially recognized it as genocide, among which Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and Vatican. The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity produced in 2007 a letter signed by 53 Nobel Laureates affirming that the 1915 killings of Armenians constituted genocide.

The Bush administration made a late push to defeat the resolution. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have privately met with lawmakers to urge them to drop the measure, and spoke to reporters hours before the vote.