Turkey will take its time during a broad assessment of bilateral relations with the United States after a US congressional committee last week branded the killings of Anatolian Armenians during World War I as genocide, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Tuesday.

The prime minister was speaking to reporters in Riyadh, where he accepted the King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam, popularly known as the “Arab Nobel Prize,” when asked about timing of Turkish Ambassador to the US Namık Tan's return to Washington. Tan was recalled for consultations after the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs approved the non-binding resolution on Thursday in a vote broadcast live on Turkish television.Emphasizing that the timing of the US vote was particularly unfortunate as it came at a time when Turkey had been trying to normalize relations with neighboring Armenia, Erdoğan reiterated Turkey's uneasiness over the performance of the committee chairman, Howard Berman.Erdoğan said Berman failed to display an appropriately professional stance and pressured committee members to vote for the resolution. “For us, the manner that will be assumed from now on is important. We've been following this manner,” Erdoğan was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.“I don't believe the US will sacrifice a strategic partner such as Turkey in the cause of trivial political calculations. We have nothing to say if they take this risk. We will assess the situation in the broadest meaning; we have to. As long as we don't see [the] results [we wished for], we will not be sending our ambassador to the US,” Erdoğan added.Syria-Israel talks may resume under Turkish mediationIndirect talks between Syria and Israel that collapsed last year following Israel's deadly offensive in Gaza may restart, reviving peace hopes in the region. A Turkish official speaking on condition of anonymity said efforts to resume the Turkish-mediated talks were to gain momentum in the coming days, without elaborating.Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, speaking after a visit to Syria on Sunday, told the London-based Arabic al-Hayat newspaper that Damascus was prepared to resume talks where they left off over a year ago, The Jerusalem Post said on Tuesday. “All the senior US officials I speak to, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Middle East envoy George Mitchell, totally support resuming the negotiations,” he was quoted as saying. Davutoğlu told reporters after talks with President Bashar al-Assad that they had discussed the resumption of the Turkish-mediated talks.Davutoğlu told al-Hayat that he was “very optimistic” regarding the resumption of the Turkish-mediated talks but said he could not say for sure when this would happen.On Tuesday, news reports said Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on a visit to Saudi Arabia, said Israel accepted the resumption of Turkish-mediated talks but officials later denied Erdoğan had made the remarks, saying he only mentioned that there was a positive atmosphere. The Foreign Ministry was cautious, telling Today's Zaman that Ankara would resume mediation if Israel officially requests it. Servet Yanatma, Nazif Erışık Ankara/Riyadh Armenia and Turkey signed two protocols in Zurich on Oct. 10 -- the “Protocol on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations” and the “Protocol on the Development of Bilateral Relations.” The deals, seen as crucial to obtaining long-term peace in the volatile South Caucasus, must be ratified by the parliaments in Ankara and Yerevan.In Ankara, the two main opposition party leaders, Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Deniz Baykal and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli, both speaking at their parties' parliamentary group meetings, called on the government to annul the protocols.Bahçeli also urged the government to draft a new regulation on the US military's use of İncirlik Air Base in Adana and called on Erdoğan to cancel a planned visit to Washington. Erdoğan is among the leaders who were invited by US President Barack Obama to participate in a White House Summit on Nuclear Security on April 13.“Our nation is expecting these reactions and precautions from Prime Minister Erdoğan. The rest is just empty words and has no correspondence in diplomacy,” Bahçeli said.Diplomatic sources have said self-isolating measures such as shutting down İncirlik Air Base or cutting defense imports from the US are unlikely at this stage. But damage to the partnership with Turkey is likely to hurt US strategic interests in the Middle East and Afghanistan, where Turkey is a key contributor to the NATO-led peacekeeping force. Its growing clout in the Middle East has given Turkey a key role in the region, making it a valuable ally for the US that is capable of exerting influence in areas and groups where the US presence and influence are limited.Meanwhile, The Hill, a congressional newspaper that publishes daily when US Congress is in session, reported on Monday that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the resolution's main sponsor, won't insist on a vote until he's certain he has enough support for it to pass.According to the report, there are no plans to bring the measure to the House floor any time soon, a Democratic leadership aide said Monday.The resolution has only 137 co-sponsors; that's well below the 212 who were still signed on to an identical resolution in 2007 even after a similar opposition campaign reduced the number of its supporters and kept it from the House floor, The Hill noted.  10 March 2010, WednesdayTODAY'S ZAMAN  ANKARA