News.am, Armenia
March 5 2010

White House Spokesman commented on Armenian Genocide resolution

15:00 / 03/05/2010The White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs answered
journalists’ questions at the daily briefing, March 4 before the
Genocide Resolution hearing in the U.S. House Committee on Foreign
Affairs.

Asked why White House asked to put off the vote, White House Spokesman
Robert Gibbs replied: `Well, I would have you talk to State about the
specific conversation that she had with members of Congress. The
President talked to the President of Turkey yesterday. When we
traveled there last year, the President on that trip was working on
bringing about the normalization of relations between Turkey and
Armenia. Progress has been made and they’ve announced the idea of that
normalization. Protocols to normalize that relationship have to go
through the Turkish parliament. Our focus is on moving that through,
because as the President told these two countries, it’s in their best
interest to move forward,’ White House website reads.

In response to the question whether the U.S. President afraid that
this would derail it in some fashion, the U.S. official said: `Our
focus is on ensuring that we continue to make progress on an issue
that has, for almost 100 years, divided two countries. Through some
very tough diplomatic work by Secretary Clinton, we’ve made progress
to the point of ` we’re on the cusp of normalization. And I think the
President believes that passage of these protocols in the Turkish
Parliament will make it that much easier,’ the source says.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress