OBAMA BACKS SARKISIAN EFFORTS ON ARMENIA-TURKEY THAW

Asbarez
ama-backs-sarkisian-efforts-on-armenia-turkey-thaw /
Oct 6th, 2009

WASHINGTON (RFE/RL)-U.S. President Barack Obama expressed his support
for the Armenian leader’s efforts to achieve normalization of relations
with Turkey as the two spoke on the phone recently.

As reported by the Armenian president’s press office, the phone
conversation took place during President Serzh Sarkisian’s stop
in Los Angeles, California, where he was on Sunday as part of his
continuing tour of major Diaspora Armenian communities to discuss
his latest initiative for Armenia to end the century-old feud with
its big neighbor and historical foe, Turkey.

Obama reportedly reaffirmed the United States’ official position that
Armenian-Turkish normalization should proceed without any preconditions
and should not be linked to the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani
conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

During the phone talk with Obama, Sarkisian also reportedly thanked the
U.S. president for "the huge mediatory work" conducted by the United
States as part of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that advances international efforts
on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. As reported by his press
office, Sarkisian emphasized Armenia’s readiness to move forward on
the way of achieving a peaceful settlement of the problem. He said the
basis of this settlement should be "the decision by Nagorno-Karabakh’s
people about their ultimate legal status by the free expression
of will, which is the basis of the Madrid principles of settlement
presented by the Minsk Group mediators."

Sarkisian was quoted as expressing his gratitude to the U.S. leader
for the support in the process of Armenian-Turkish normalization and
also as presenting his impressions of the Diaspora tour.

According to the release for the media, the Armenian president
emphasized that "the concerns and fears of the Armenian Diaspora
regarding the process are natural, considering the fact that the
Armenian people was subjected to genocide by Ottoman Turkey, about
which Obama has repeatedly mentioned in his public speeches."

Sarkisian last week embarked on a weeklong tour of major Diaspora
communities, including Paris, New York, Los Angeles, Beirut
and Rostov-on-Don, to try and gain support for the beleaguered
Turkey-Armenia Protocols, which have been met with resounding rebuke
by Armenians around the world. Sarkisian has already completed his
meetings with prominent Diaspora members in Europe and the United
States and is in Lebanon now, after which he will fly to Southern
Russia.

More than 12,000 Armenian Americans from throughout California
converged on the Beverly Hilton Hotel to protest Sarkisian on
Sunday. Hundreds more gathered at the Genocide Memorial in Montebello
the next morning to stand guard the monument in the case Sarkisian
attempted to use the site for a photo-opp. Thousands similarly
protested the president when he visited New York, forming a picket
line at his hotel. The mass demonstrations against the president
began in Paris Friday, where a thousand Armenians who were holding
a peaceful sit-in at the Gomidas genocide memorial were violently
attacked by Police, clearing the way for Sarkisian to walk u to the
statue to get his photo taken.