Hillary Clinton Urges Azerbaijan And Armenia to End Dispute

Armenia’s leading political forces offered on Tuesday differing assessments of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Yerevan, with the ruling Republican Party (HHK) touting it as “very important” for the country and its opponents sounding far more skeptical.

Some local pro-democracy activists, meanwhile, expressed their disappointment with Clinton’s failure to publicly criticize the Armenian authorities’ human rights record.

“The American sector is one of the most important directions of our foreign policy,” Eduard Sharmazanov, the spokesman for the HHK, which is led by President Serge Sargisian. “Ever since the first day of our independence, there has been very close cooperation [between the two nations,] and the United States has provided various assistance to the young Republic of Armenia both in terms of democracy building and other areas.”

Echoing statements by Armenian government officials, he said Clinton’s visit strengthened US- rmenian relations. He cited Clinton’s public endorsement of Armenia’s position on normalizing relations with Turkey as another key result of the trip.

“We knew very well that the United States administration always supported the Armenian president’s pro-active policy of establishing relations with Turkey without preconditions,” Sharmazanov said. “But Mrs. Clinton went farther here.”

“This was a gesture to the Armenian authorities. I think this was also a message to Turkey to the effect that the US supports Armenia on this issue and agrees with Armenia’s view that Turkey is not constructive and is speaking with preconditions,” added the ruling party spokesman.

But a senior representative of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), an opposition party highly critical of Sargisian’s US-backed policy on Turkey, downplayed Clinton’s statements. Giro Manoyan suggested that they were aimed at making sure that Yerevan does not rescind its signature from the Turkish-Armenian protocols signed last October.

Manoyan also reiterated his party’s strong criticism of Clinton’s failure to describe the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide during what the US Embassy in Armenia called a “private visit” to the Tsitsernakabert Genocide memorial in Yerevan. He denounced the characterization as “offensive” and said it contradicts the fact that she laid a wreath there in her capacity as America’s top diplomat. “The American side should clarify what happened,” he said.

Sharmazanov welcomed the wreathlaying ceremony, saying it showed that the US is “committed to democratic values and human rights.” He also hailed Clinton’s statements on the Nagorno- Karabagh conflict and, in particular, her strong condemnation of threats to solve by it force. The condemnation was primarily addressed to Azerbaijan, he said.

Manoyan countered that Clinton did not mention Azerbaijan by name. “I would say that pressure over the Karabagh issue was mainly exerted on Armenia,” he claimed.

(Radio Free Europe contributed to this report.)