news.am, Armenia
March 5 2010

U.S. Assistant Secretary speaks of Armenian Genocide Resolution

15:54 / 03/05/2010 Philip J. Crowley, Assistant Secretary to the Bureau
of Public Affairs answered journalists’ questions at the daily
briefing, March 4 before the Genocide resolution hearing in the U.S.
House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Asked by the journalist who held the information that Secretary
Hillary Clinton called Chairman Howard Berman to urge him to not vote
on the Armenian Genocide Resolution right now, as it could hurt the
Turkey-Armenia talks but he voted regardless, U.S. Assistant Secretary
Philip Crowley replied: `Secretary Clinton did call Chairman Berman
yesterday, and in that conversation, she indicated that further
congressional action could impede progress on normalization of
relations. I think the President also spoke yesterday with President
Gul and expressed appreciation for his and Prime Minister Erdogan’s
efforts to normalize relations between Turkey and Armenia. And in that
call, I think he continued to press for rapid ratification of the
protocols that have been worked out between the two countries.’

In response to the question that Administration asked Congress not to
go ahead with the resolution voting, but the committee did so, and
whether this will damage U.S.-Turkish relations, he replied: `Well, I
mean, we’ve worked very hard to assist Turkey and Armenia. As the
President has made clear, it ` we promote a free ` a fair, frank, and
just acknowledgement of the facts related to the historical events of
1915. We are concerned that possible action that Congress would take
would impede the positive momentum that we see in the Turkey-Armenia
normalization process. We’ve made that position clear to Chairman
Berman, and we’ll see what Congress does as a result.’

Asked to comment on U.S.-Turkey relations having the voting shortly
and can it be ignoring of his pleas for political means, Crowley
parried: `Well, let’s see what happens in Congress and then let’s see
how Turkey reacts to it. We have had very specific conversations with
Congress. There ` I think they have a firm understanding of our views
on this issue. We have also talked to Turkey. The Secretary had a
meeting with Prime Minister Erdogan in Doha a couple of weeks ago. So
this is obviously something that has come up before, and we are
concerned about its potential impact on our relations with the
affected countries. We do think that the normalization process is the
proper mechanism within which to address these issues, and we will
continue to work very, very hard on this. We’ve had ` this has been a
very, very significant issue for the Obama Administration since coming
to office. We’ve had a lot of high-level meetings with Turkey and
Armenia on these issues. We’ve pressed hard to see the progress that
we’ve seen to date, and we certainly do not want to see that
jeopardized,’ he concluded.