ITAR-TASS News Agency
TASS
April 25, 2005 Monday

US president offers sympathy to Armenia over genocide history

BY Dmitry Kirsanov

WASHINGTON, April 25 – US President George Bush has offered profound
condolences to the people of Armenia in connection with the 90th
anniversary of genocide of Armenians by the Osman empire.

He stressed in his message that the US saw the future of the Armenian
state as promising.

The statement by the US president published on Sunday said the US
remembers the slaughter of one and a half million Armenians in the
days of existence of the Ottoman empire.

Bush said he joined his citizens and Armenians of the whole world in
expressing the deepest condolences about those terrible deaths.

He said the US was grateful to Armenia for its contribution to the
war against terrorism and to the efforts aimed at building a
democratic and peaceful Iraq.

Bush said the US remained committed to support of historical reforms
that Armenia had been pursuing over the past decade.

The US also calls on the Armenian government to broaden democratic
liberties that could help lasting and peaceful settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Bush added that the US was also set to achieve a deeper partnership
with Armenia, including cooperation in the security sphere and
contacts resting on market and democracy values.

The US president has expressed the hope that the proposal made by
Turkish President Rejep Erdogan in early April to set up a bilateral
expert commission to study facts of genocide of Armenia in 1915 would
serve to consolidation of freedom, peace and prosperity of Armenia
and Turkey.