US URGES TURKEY TO DROP KARABAKH CONDITION FOR TIES WITH ARMENIA: ZAMAN
ArmInfo
2009-12-11 16:10:00
ArmInfo. Within days of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan clearly
linking the issues of normalization of relations between Ankara and
Yerevan to resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Baku
and Yerevan, a senior US State Department official urged Turkey to
make progress on normalization efforts with Armenia without setting
preconditions, the Turkish newspaper Zaman reports.
Following a White House meeting with US President Barack Obama on
Monday, Erdogan said progress in ongoing efforts at normalization
between Armenia and Turkey was related to progress concerning the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Obama had already "encouraged him [Erdogan] to continue to move forward
along this path," in regards to the rapprochement between Turkey and
Armenia. Obama’s remarks are considered an apparent reflection of the
US expectation of further progress on the normalization efforts with
Armenia, probably through the swift ratification of the two protocols
signed by the governments on restoring diplomatic ties and reopening
the common border between the two neighboring countries.
Philip H. Gordon, the assistant secretary of state for European and
Eurasian affairs at the US State Department, who participated in White
House talks between US and Turkish officials, touched upon the issue
on Wednesday during a meeting at the Council on Foreign Relations
(CFR). :Underlining US expectations of seeing a "move forward as
quickly as possible," Gordon said the US has been asking both the
Armenian and Turkish governments for the ratification of the protocols
"as soon as possible, without preconditions and independently of any
other issue," the source reported.