Immediately following Thursday’s dramatic House Foreign Affairs Committee vote approving House Resolution 252 affirming the Armenian Genocide, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the resolution should go no further.

While on a tour of Latin America, Clinton said from Costa Rica that the Obama administration has made its intentions clear:

“We do not believe that the full Congress will or should vote on that resolution and we have made that clear to all the parties involved,” Clinton said.

A day earlier, prior to the Committee vote, Clinton had urged Committee Chairman Howard Berman – a 27-year veteran congressman from California – not to bring the resolution to a vote, as had been scheduled since last month. Berman (a cosponsor of HR252), denied the Secretary’s appeal, leading to the narrow (23-22) approval.

The resolution calls on the U.S. Government to acknowledge that the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turkey from 1915-23 constitute “genocide”. The next step in the resolution process would be for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to call for a vote of all 435 congresspersons.

HR252 has received co-sponsorship from about 140 members of Congress.

Pelosi has generally been friendly toward the Armenian perspective on the Genocide. So, though, has Clinton who as a Senator – along with her colleague and now President, Barrack Obama -- supported recognition. Prior to the vote, Obama had a phone conversation with Turkish President Abdullah Gul that was seen as the U.S. president assuring Gul that he (Obama) was not in favor of the resolution.

Whether the resolution is called to a Full House vote could challenge the allegiance of Pelosi (a Democrat) to the administration. Three times since 2000 – while both Democrats and Republicans were in office -- similar resolutions never got off the Floor.

Still, the symbolic approval of the powerful Committee has earned condemnation from Turkey which within minutes of the Thursday vote (reached around 1 a.m. Friday Yerevan time) recalled its ambassador to the United States.

The withdrawal of Ambassador Namik Tan was followed by rebuke from Gul, who said his country is being accused of “a crime it has not committed”.

In Yerevan, though, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian called the vote “another proof of the devotion of the American people to universal human values and an important step toward the prevention of the crimes against humanity.”