OSKANIAN SENDS LETTER TO PELOSI IN RESPONSE TO US STATESMEN

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Oct 3 2007

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian has sent a letter to US
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, reacting to
an earlier letter addressed to her by eight former secretaries of
state that said a resolution calling on the US administration to
recognize Armenian claims of genocide would harm US interests and
disrupt Turkish-Armenian reconciliation prospects.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian

"It is with dismay that I read that the letter claims that such
a resolution would hurt Armenia-Turkey relations. It is quite
unfortunate that eight experienced diplomats would buy into Turkish
manipulation," Oskanian said in his letter dated Sept. 27, according
to a statement from the Armenian Foreign Ministry e-mailed to Today’s
Zaman yesterday. "I regret to say that there is no process in place
to promote normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey.

Expressing concern about damaging a process that doesn’t exist is,
at the very least, disingenuous."

The letter from US diplomats was signed by Madeleine K. Albright,
James A. Baker III, Warren Christopher, Lawrence S. Eagleburger,
Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Henry A. Kissinger, Colin L. Powell and George
P. Shultz. They called on Pelosi, who is known to be an advocate of
the resolution, to block the vote on it.

Turkey categorically rejects Armenian claims of genocide, saying that
Turks as well as Armenians died during the World War I years when
Armenians took up arms against the Ottoman Empire in collaboration
with the invading Russian army in the hope of creating an Armenian
state in part of eastern Anatolia.