Obama Encourages Sargisian and Erdogan to Advance Rapprochement

Following his meeting with Erdogan, Sargisian met with members of the Armenian community at the National Cathedral in Washington and told them he took a firm stand with Erdogan during their meeting.

“We are ready to have normal relations with all our neighbors but we will not tolerate someone to dictate conditions to us,” the Armenian leader said, according to remarks posted on his website. “I met this morning with the Turkish prime minister. Our position was and is always very clear: Turkey can’t talk with Armenian and
Armenians with the language of preconditions. We will simply not allow that.”
In his speech, Sargisian commended the Armenian-American community for its decades-long efforts at official US recognition of the genocide. “Nobody can stop the inevitable,” he said, signaling Yerevan’s continuing support for the latest genocide bill.
Sargisian also defended the Turkish-Armenian protocols, saying that those critics who claimed they would halt the genocide recognition process have been proven wrong. He also accused Turkey of making “doomed attempts” to cause a rift on the issue between Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora.

Sargisian addressed community activists at the Washington National Cathedral after laying flowers at the grave of Woodrow Wilson, America’s World War I-era president. He touted Wilson as “a true friend of the Armenian people” and “great statesman” who was the first to articulate the need for international recognition of the Armenian Genocide.
Sargisian also lauded the modern-day US for its “considerable role in the life of the Armenian people.”

During his visit to President Wilson’s tomb, Sargisian greeted Armenian Genocide survivors Rose Baboyian, Yeretsgeen Sirarpi Khoyan and Lousadzeen Tatarian, who presented the president with a letter urging him to continue the fight for Genocide recognition and stand up for the rights of the Armenian people. Following the wreath-laying ceremony, Sargisian stood solemnly as Armenian-American clergy offered prayers in memory of President Wilson and honored the victims and survivors of the Armenian Genocide. Amongst the clergy in attendance were Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Prelate of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Eastern US; Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, Primate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), and Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, Legate of the Diocese of the Armenian Church of America (Eastern), and representatives of the Armenian Catholic and Evangelical communities.

Sargisian added, “We are not going to make a subject of review the fact of genocide in any format” — a reference to the World War I-era mass killings of Armenians by Turkish forces — “or to pretend that Turkey can play any positive role in the negotiating process of Nagorno-Karabagh conflict resolution.”

Obama, Erdogan Meet