U.S. WANTS RESULTS
os15355.html
13:31:30 – 30/09/2009
"It was on Friday that the Secretary met with Foreign Minister
Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan. She underscored the United States continued
strong support for the Nagorno-Karabakh process. Also in the meeting
was our new Minsk Group co-chair – that is to say, representative to
those talks Ambassador Robert Bradtke, a highly experienced diplomat
whose designation in this job underscores how keen we are to see
progress on that front. The Secretary also raised the important
questions of human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan, including the
case of the bloggers who were recently beaten up and arrested. And
she underscored our interest in that case and our interest in seeing
an open and fair process.
This morning, she met with Armenian Foreign Minister Nalbandian and
she stressed our very strong support for the continued Turkey-Armenia
normalization process. She made clear that, for the United States, that
is a process that should move forward without preconditions and within
a reasonable timeframe. She also raised the issue of democratization
in Armenia. She welcomed the government’s recent release of political
prisoners and underscored that that’s an important issue to the United
States and it would facilitate our full partnership, something that
she stressed – that we cooperate and value our partnership with
Armenia on a range of issues, and wanted to see that move forward.
Meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister Davutoglu just now; the
Secretary and the foreign minister discussed a very wide range of
issues. The U.S.-Turkish partnership is characterized by its depth
and its breadth, and so the ministers, I think, reflecting that,
talked about Turkey-Armenia, and again, she stressed our support for
that process."
In answer to reporters’ questions Philip Gordon also said, "There
are things still to be finalized as to the details of a signature and
submission to parliament. We are encouraged that the process is moving
forward, and I’m just simply saying that we’re leaving – this is a
Swiss-mediated process between Turkey and Armenia, and it’s for them
to announce details on signings and so on. 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."
In answer to a reporter’s question what means no precondition, if the
Armenians don’t stipulate that the Turks recognize the genocide, Mr
Gordon said, "Well, I mean, no preconditions means no preconditions on
either side. There are lots of things that one could try to link this
process to, and what we are saying is that the process is inherently
valuable, that we think that Turkey-Armenian normalization is a good
thing, and it shouldn’t wait for other things to get done or be linked
to other things; it should go ahead."