STATE DEPT. HOLDS EMERGENCY CAPITOL HILL BRIEFING ON PROTOCOLS

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Sep 29, 2009

LOS ANGELES-Newly-appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of State,
Tina Kaidanow, traveled to Capitol Hill Tuesday for a late afternoon
emergency legislative briefing to address growing Congressional
concerns regarding the controversial Turkey-Armenia protocols,
sources in Washington told Asbarez.

Among the topics reportedly discussed at the closed-door gathering were
Congressional sensitivity to the rapidly escalating and broad-based
Armenian-American opposition to the protocols, and the increasing
awareness of the intense pressure being applied upon Armenia by Turkey
and its allies to approve the protocols.

The harried briefing took place less than 48 hours after a major
10,000-person rally against the protocols in Los Angeles and on the eve
of President Serzh Sarkisian’s upcoming tour of Diaspora communities,
which includes stops in New York and Los Angeles. It is anticipated
that Sarkisian will be met with outrage over the protocols during
his tour from an energetically unified cross-section of the community.

A similar concern was evident during a press briefing at the Waldorf
Astoria Hotel in New York Monday, when Assistant Secretary of State
Philip Gordon was cautious to address the Turkey-Armenia protocols.

In response to a reporter’s question whether the State Department was
"afraid it’s [the process] was going to slide" before the six-week
deadline set by the protocols, Gordon conceded that there were bumps
in the road.

"Look, this is a difficult process that faces some political opposition
in both places, and it’s hard for both governments. If it wasn’t
hard, they would have normalized relations a long time ago. And
so when we say reasonable timeframe, we mean just that: that it’s
not just the process that we want to see – we welcome the process;
but we also want to see a conclusion to the process, and that’s what
we’re underscoring when we say that," said Gordon.

In reporting on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urging Turkey and
Armenia to carry out plans to normalize relations, Reuters observed
that her comments appeared to reflect uncertainty about whether
the countries will stick to their plan to sign the pact restoring
diplomatic ties and reopening their border by mid-October.