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BIDEN URGES TURKEY TO HONOR PROTOCOLS
Asbarez
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Vice President Biden meets with Turkish President Abdullah Gul
Vice President Joe Biden pressed Turkey to unconditionally ratify its
Western-backed normalization agreements with Armenia "in the months
ahead" during a visit to Ankara and Istanbul that ended at the weekend.
A senior official from the administration of President Barack Obama
said the fate of the two Turkish-Armenian protocols signed in 2009 was
on the agenda of Biden's talks with Turkish President Abdullah Gul,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and parliament speaker Cemil Cicek.
The official said that during a breakfast meeting with Cicek on Friday
Biden "applauded the fact that the protocols for normalization with
Armenia were back on the agenda of the [Turkish] parliament." "And
he expressed his hope that the parliament will be able to act those
protocols in the months ahead," the official told U.S. journalists
travelling with Biden.
The U.S. vice president met Gul later on Friday before travelling to
Istanbul for separate talks with Erdogan held on Sunday.
"On Armenia, he said to the prime minister what he had raised with
President Gul, as well, the hope that now that the protocols for
normalization were back on the agenda of the parliament that Turkey
would be able to move on those protocols in the months ahead," the
Obama administration official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conveyed a similar message
to the Turkish government when she visited Istanbul last July.
The Turkish leaders and Erdogan in particular have repeatedly made
clear that the protocols will not be ratified by Turkey's parliament
before a breakthrough in international efforts to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Armenia rejects this precondition. President Serzh Sarkisian threatened
earlier this year to withdraw Yerevan's signature from the accord if
the Turks stick to the Karabakh linkage.
According to the Istanbul-based "Hurriyet Daily News" newspaper,
Biden told Gul that Ankara should "speed up the normalization process
with Armenia" if it wants the Obama administration to block further
resolutions in the U.S. Congress recognizing the 1915 mass killings
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
This warning attributed to Biden could be seized upon by Armenian
critics of the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement who say it has helped
Ankara to thwart a broader international recognition of the Armenian
genocide.
They were already incensed when Biden claimed last year that Sarkisian
himself had asked the White House not to use the word genocide. Both
official Yerevan and the U.S. Embassy in Armenia denied Biden's claim
videotaped by an Armenian-American activist.
Biden strongly supported Armenian genocide resolutions debated by
Congress when he was a member of the U.S. Senate.
Asbarez
Tuesday, December 6th, 2011
Vice President Biden meets with Turkish President Abdullah Gul
Vice President Joe Biden pressed Turkey to unconditionally ratify its
Western-backed normalization agreements with Armenia "in the months
ahead" during a visit to Ankara and Istanbul that ended at the weekend.
A senior official from the administration of President Barack Obama
said the fate of the two Turkish-Armenian protocols signed in 2009 was
on the agenda of Biden's talks with Turkish President Abdullah Gul,
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and parliament speaker Cemil Cicek.
The official said that during a breakfast meeting with Cicek on Friday
Biden "applauded the fact that the protocols for normalization with
Armenia were back on the agenda of the [Turkish] parliament." "And
he expressed his hope that the parliament will be able to act those
protocols in the months ahead," the official told U.S. journalists
travelling with Biden.
The U.S. vice president met Gul later on Friday before travelling to
Istanbul for separate talks with Erdogan held on Sunday.
"On Armenia, he said to the prime minister what he had raised with
President Gul, as well, the hope that now that the protocols for
normalization were back on the agenda of the parliament that Turkey
would be able to move on those protocols in the months ahead," the
Obama administration official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton conveyed a similar message
to the Turkish government when she visited Istanbul last July.
The Turkish leaders and Erdogan in particular have repeatedly made
clear that the protocols will not be ratified by Turkey's parliament
before a breakthrough in international efforts to resolve the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Armenia rejects this precondition. President Serzh Sarkisian threatened
earlier this year to withdraw Yerevan's signature from the accord if
the Turks stick to the Karabakh linkage.
According to the Istanbul-based "Hurriyet Daily News" newspaper,
Biden told Gul that Ankara should "speed up the normalization process
with Armenia" if it wants the Obama administration to block further
resolutions in the U.S. Congress recognizing the 1915 mass killings
of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as genocide.
This warning attributed to Biden could be seized upon by Armenian
critics of the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement who say it has helped
Ankara to thwart a broader international recognition of the Armenian
genocide.
They were already incensed when Biden claimed last year that Sarkisian
himself had asked the White House not to use the word genocide. Both
official Yerevan and the U.S. Embassy in Armenia denied Biden's claim
videotaped by an Armenian-American activist.
Biden strongly supported Armenian genocide resolutions debated by
Congress when he was a member of the U.S. Senate.