Azernews.Az

US President Barack Obama has pledged to facilitate a settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict to the best of his abilities, says Yasar Yakis, Turkey’s former foreign minister and parliament member.
Yakis told the press that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan did his utmost to advance Azerbaijan’s cause on his visit to Washington early this week, during which he held talks with President Obama.
"During the visit, Prime Minister Erdogan presented Azerbaijan as his country and sought the White House leader’s support for Turkey’s ally."
The Turkish lawmaker regarded the United States as one of the two countries capable of resolving the Garabagh conflict. He said that the Turkish prime minister had called on Obama to assist in expediting a solution by using U.S. clout in the world and, more specifically, in the mediating OSCE Minsk Group, which the U.S. co-chairs, along with Russia and France.
As for the so-called genocide of Armenians, a claim on the World War I-era mass killings in the Ottoman Empire, Yakis said this issue was not on the agenda during Erdogan’s talks at the White House Oval Office.
"On the eve of Erdogan’s visit to the U.S., the Armenian National Committee of America requested that the White House put pressure on Erdogan to that end. Instead, Obama told Armenians he was attaching great importance to his visit."
Yakis noted that the US president believes the "genocide" issue could be solved through a normalization of the Turkish-Armenian relations.
‘Obama knows that this claim will be dismissed as a result of research by a joint commission studying the history of Turkish-Armenian relations," Yakis added.
Armenians say Ottoman Turks killed 1.5 million people in 1915, a claim strenuously dismissed by Turkey, and have been seeking passage of a "genocide" bill in the US Congress.*