{"id":14143,"date":"2009-08-10T20:17:09","date_gmt":"2009-08-10T18:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=14143"},"modified":"2023-04-06T15:50:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-06T12:50:11","slug":"us-hopes-for-sarkisian-visit-to-turkey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2009\/08\/10\/us-hopes-for-sarkisian-visit-to-turkey\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Hopes For Sarkisian Visit To Turkey"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Turkey – U.S. President Barack Obama (R) meets with foreign ministers of Armenia, Turkey and Switzerland in Istanbul, 06Apr2009<\/p><\/div>\n

10.08.2009<\/div>\n
Emil Danielyan<\/div>\n

The United States hopes that President Serzh Sarkisian will visit Turkey in October to continue Yerevan\u2019s fence-mending \u201cfootball diplomacy\u201d with Ankara, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said over the weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bryza acknowledged at the same time that the U.S.-backed Turkish-Armenian dialogue has stalled of late and that he is now less optimistic about chances for the normalization of relations between the two estranged neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I had hoped was going to happen did not happen,\u201d he told RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service. \u201cSometimes, if I\u2019m asked to make a prediction, the prediction does not come true. I thought that there was a specific step that was about to occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no reason why those steps still can not happen, and we are working together with the Swiss mediators to try to help the parties think through what it is that they each can do to get the process moving again. I do have some hope that that will happen, but I can\u2019t predict how quickly or what can be agreed,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Speaking to RFE\/RL on May 28, Bryza insisted that Armenia\u2019s rapprochement with Turkey has not reached an impasse despite Ankara\u2019s renewed linkage between the normalization of bilateral relations and a Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. Visiting Yerevan two weeks later, Philip Gordon, the newly appointed U.S. assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian, likewise sounded upbeat on the normalization prospects.<\/p>\n

Sarkisian has since increasingly expressed his frustration with Ankara\u2019 stance, implicitly accusing the Turks of reneging on agreements reached during year-long negotiations with his government. The Armenian leader made clear last month that he will not accept Turkish President Abdullah Gul\u2019s invitation to watch with him the October 14 return match of the two countries\u2019 national football teams unless Turkey takes \u201creal steps\u201d to reopen its border with Armenia. The two presidents attended the first game played in Yerevan in September last year.<\/p>\n

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Armenia — U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza in Yerevan.<\/span><\/div>\n

In Bryza\u2019s words, Sarkisian\u2019s visit to Turkey would be \u201cvery good news for America\u201d because it would mean that \u201ctwo of our friends are coming together.\u201d \u201cWe were so pleased when President Gul came to Yerevan and we would be happy if President Sarkisian went to Turkey,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Bryza stressed, however, that Washington will not press Sarkisian to accept Gul\u2019s invitation. \u201cIt\u2019s important not to conflate or confuse our desire for something to happen with pressure,\u201d he said. \u201cI have seen some absolutely ridiculous accusations by some here in Armenia that the United States is pressuring Armenia to agree to one thing or another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Armenian opposition politicians have claimed that Turkey\u2019s preconditions for normalizing relations with Armenia have left Yerevan under stronger pressure from the international community and the U.S. in particular to make more concessions in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict<\/p>\n

Bryza also insisted that the success of the Turkish-Armenian dialogue does not hinge on a breakthrough in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks mediated by the U.S., Russia and France. \u201cThese two processes are separate,\u201d he said. \u201cWhat is true is that, as I\u2019ve said so many times, if there is progress in one process, that will help to generate a more positive mood throughout the entire region and then help to reduce tension and facilitate progress in the other process.\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.azatutyun.am\/a\/1796458.html<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkey – U.S. President Barack Obama (R) meets with foreign ministers of Armenia, Turkey and Switzerland in Istanbul, 06Apr2009 10.08.2009 Emil Danielyan The United States hopes that President Serzh Sarkisian will visit Turkey in October to continue Yerevan\u2019s fence-mending \u201cfootball diplomacy\u201d with Ankara, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza said over the weekend. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,208,89,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-southerncaucasus","category-turkey","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}