M BRYZA: SARKISIAN’S VISIT TO TURKEY WOULD BE ‘VERY GOOD NEWS FOR AMERICA’

ArmInfo
2009-08-12 11:27:00

ArmInfo. The United States hopes that President Serzh Sarkisian
will visit Turkey in October to continue Yerevan’s fence-mending
"football diplomacy" with Ankara, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of
State Matthew Bryza said over the weekend.

Bryza acknowledged at the same time that the U.S.-backed
Turkish-Armenian dialogue has stalled of late and that he is now less
optimistic about chances for the normalization of relations between
the two estranged neighbors.

"What I had hoped was going to happen did not happen," he told RFE/RL’s
Armenian service. "Sometimes, if I’m asked to make a prediction, the
prediction does not come true. I thought that there was a specific
step that was about to occur."

"There is no reason why those steps still can not happen, and we
are working together with the Swiss mediators to try to help the
parties think through what it is that they each can do to get the
process moving again. I do have some hope that that will happen,
but I can’t predict how quickly or what can be agreed," he added.

…In Bryza’s words, Sarkisian’s visit to Turkey would be "very good
news for America" because it would mean that "two of our friends
are coming together." "We were so pleased when President Gul came to
Yerevan and we would be happy if President Sarkisian went to Turkey,"
he said.

Bryza stressed, however, that Washington will not press Sarkisian to
accept Gul’s invitation. "It’s important not to conflate or confuse our
desire for something to happen with pressure," he said. "I have seen
some absolutely ridiculous accusations by some here in Armenia that the
United States is pressuring Armenia to agree to one thing or another."

Some Armenian opposition politicians have claimed that Turkey’s
preconditions for normalizing relations with Armenia have left Yerevan
under stronger pressure from the international community and the
U.S. in particular to make more concessions in the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict

Bryza also insisted that the success of the Turkish-Armenian dialogue
does not hinge on a breakthrough in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks
mediated by the U.S., Russia and France. "These two processes are
separate," he said.

"What is true is that, as I’ve said so many times, if there is
progress in one process, that will help to generate a more positive
mood throughout the entire region and then help to reduce tension
and facilitate progress in the other process."