U.S. TO SUPPORT ARMENIA-TURKEY RECONCILIATION: OBAMA
news.am
Dec 4 2009
Armenia
13:09 / 12/04/2009U.S. President stated he would continue to press
unconditional Armenia-Turkey rapprochement, RFE/RL reads. NEWS.am
posts the full text of the article of RFE/RL website.
"Obama hailed the U.S.-backed dialogue between the two nations as
"historic," in a letter to Hirair Hovnanian, chairman of the Armenian
Assembly of America,that was publicized by the influential advocacy
group late on Thursday.
"I agree that normalization between Armenia and Turkey should move
forward without preconditions and within a reasonable timeframe,"
he said, echoing statements by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
and other U.S. officials.
"We will continue to vigorously support the normalization effort in
the months ahead," added Obama.
The letter dated November 20 came in response to a September
9 joint appeal to Obama from Hovnanian and the leaders of the
Armenian General Benevolent Union and two U.S dioceses of the
Armenian Apostolic Church. The signatories voiced support for the
fence-mending Turkish-Armenian agreements and said Washington should
get Ankara to stop linking their implementation with a resolution of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict favored by Azerbaijan.
The Armenian-American leaders also urged Obama to honor his campaign
pledges to recognize the 1915 massacres of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire as genocide once in office. "If this normalization process
is used as a smokescreen for not reaffirming the Armenian Genocide
and the U.S. record, it will be a blow to the rapprochement process
and the expectations of people of goodwill everywhere," they said,
highlighting concerns among many Armenians in the United States and
elsewhere in the world.
In his reply, Obama again stopped short using the word ‘genocide’
with respect to "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century,"
even if he made clear that he stands by his past pronouncements on the
subject. "My interest remains the achievement of a full, frank and just
acknowledgement of the facts," he wrote. "I believe that the best way
to advance that goal is for the Armenian and Turkish people to address
the facts of the past as part of their efforts to move forward."