US Congressmen signing letter to Barack Obama on Armenian-Turkish
relations
19.07.2009 00:29 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ At the bipartisan initiative of Reps. Frank Pallone,
Jr. (D.-N.J.), and Mark Kirk (R.-Ill.), the co-chairs of the House
Armenian Caucus, and Reps. Adam Schiff (D.-Calif.) and George
Radanovich (R.-Calif.), members of Congress are being asked to sign a
letter to President Barack Obama on Armenia-Turkey relations, the
armenian reporter reports.

Referring to the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey
and the Armenian Genocide, the letter calls on President Obama "to
separate the issues of normalization and genocide recognition."

The authors of the letter note that the State Department on April 22
released a statement welcoming the announcement of Armenia and Turkey
that they had agreed on a roadmap toward the normalization of
relations. Two days later, on April 24, instead of recognizing the
Armenian Genocide, the president opted to focus on the road map.

The authors note that Armenia has remained committed to the roadmap,
but Turkey has chosen to "undermine U.S. policy that normalization
take place without preconditions." They conclude that Turkey, "in an
effort to block U.S. recognition of the Armenian Genocide, agreed to a
roadmap it did not intend to uphold."

Members of Congress who sign the letter will be asking the president
to proceed with recognizing the Genocide as he promised, and
separately continuing to urge Turkey to proceed with normalization of
relations with Armenia.