Armenian Remembrance Day Bid Fails : Congress: Backers lack votes to halt a filibuster. Resolution marks the 75th anniversary of massacre.

Senators attempting to set a day of remembrance for Armenian genocide victims in the Ottoman Empire 75 years ago all but abandoned their effort Tuesday after failing in another attempt to bring their resolution to a vote.

By a 51-48 margin, the Senate voted not to cut off a filibuster on the measure, which has been sharply criticized by Turkey and is opposed by the Bush Administration. Its chief supporter, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.), called the vote a triumph of politics over morality.

The resolution would have designated April 24 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of “the Armenian genocide of 1915-1923”--a bloody epoch when, according to historians and eyewitnesses, ruling Ottoman Turks massacred up to 1.5 million Turkish Armenians.

The Senate sided with the Administration position that such a gesture would risk offending Turkey, a strategic North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally that has staged an intense lobbying campaign on Capitol Hill against the resolution.

It was the second time that sponsors had failed to muster the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster. The resolution’s backers said they would not try a third time.

The resolution was favored by the nation’s 1 million Armenian-Americans, about 250,000 of whom live in Southern California. Bipartisan support initially ran high among senators, 60 of whom signed on as co-sponsors.

That support began to erode, however, amid pressure from Turkish political and business interests. The Turkish government privately threatened to cut ties with U.S. corporations if the Senate passed a resolution affirming that genocide had occurred.

The Turks have insisted that while hundreds of thousands of Armenians died during and after World War I, there was no systematic murder of Armenians.

Dole said he might introduce a compromise version of the resolution in the coming weeks that would not require the President’s signature if passed and would water down references to “genocide,” a major sticking point.

Dole tried to introduce an amended version on the Senate floor. But the filibuster leader, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), objected.

As part of the 2 1/2-hour filibuster, Byrd read excerpts from books that suggested that many of the Armenian deaths could have been the product of starvation, disease and civil war fueled by out-of-control nationalist fervor, as occurred recently in Soviet Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In response, Dole lashed out at senators he said are more concerned about “not offending anybody” and protecting “American companies’ profit margins” than in addressing past wrongs.

He said the resolution would not blame the current Turkish government for the actions of the Ottoman Empire, which collapsed after fighting on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary in World War I.

After Tuesday’s vote, the Armenian Assembly of America charged that the Senate is kowtowing to the Turkish government.

“Obviously, we’re deeply discouraged,” said Ross Vartian, executive director of the Armenian Assembly, which plans to continue lobbying for the resolution. “The message the Senate sends is that they care more about Turkish threats than they care about the historical record, and human rights. It’s a win for Turkey.”