Hürriyet, Turkey
May 17 2008
Armenia asks US to press Turkey to normalize relations
Armenian lobby in the United States presented a new bill to House of
Representatives envisaging Washington to put pressure on Ankara to
lift the embargo which it claimed Turkey imposes on Armenia, the
state-run Anatolian Agency reported Saturday.
Adam Schiff, an MP of U.S. Democrat Party, prepared the bill. Schiff
is known as leading Armenian initiatives in the House of
Representatives.
The bill envisages U.S. to launch initiatives for the removal of the
alleged embargo and U.S. Secretary of State to prepare a report for
the Congress about the incidents.
The same text should be submitted to the senate and the bill should be
adopted both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate and
should be signed by U.S. President in order to be enacted.
Armenian lobby in the United States had submitted a similar bill two
years ago but the bill has not been presented to the agenda of the
House of Representatives.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic links after Ankara severed ties
in protest against Armenian control and violence in the
Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia invaded in a war with
Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. The border between Turkey and Armenia
has been closed.
Armenia’s genocide claims are another problem in two countries’
relations. Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5
million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in
1915. However 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died
in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for
independence in eastern Anatolia.