US SUPPORTS NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONS BETWEEN ARMENIA AND TURKEY: DANIEL FRIED
Trend News Agency
June 19 2008
Azerbaijan
The United States supports the normalization of relations between
Armenia and Turkey, Daniel Fried, the US Assistant Secretary of State
said in the Capitol Hill, ITAR-TASS reported. "The current situation
does not suit anyone," he said while addressing the committee for the
foreign affairs of the Chamber of Representatives of the Congress. "US
thinks that the border between Armenia and Turkey should be opened,"
he said.
According to Fried, "both parties will gain from the mutual direct
trade links to great extent by connecting their electricity network and
other moves". "The United States also supports trans-border dialogue
and cooperation between Armenia and Turkey in realization of research
initiatives, holding conferences and carrying out exchange programs,"
said the representative of the State Department.
"However, the settlement of disagreements between Armenia and Turkey
‘requires the solution of the painful issues," Fried said. "Turkey
will have to reconcile itself to the massacres and forced deportation
of up to 1.5mln Armenians during the period of the Ottoman Empire
[1915, ITAR-TASS]," he said. It will not be easy as in case of the
United States when it was not easy to reconcile itself to the gloomy
facts in its own history. Armenia, on its part, should be ready to
give up all territorial claims to Turkey and constrictively react to
the /reconciliatory/ efforts which by Turkey", he said.
There is no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey who have
a common border of 330km. Ankara insists that Yerevan should stop
striving for the international recognition of the so-called Armenian
genocide of 1915 and stop supporting Nagorno-Karabakh in a conflict
with Azerbaijan.