Armenia asks US to press Turkey to normalize relations
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Armenian lobby in the United States presented a new bill to House of Representatives envisaging Washington to put pressure on Ankara to lift the embargo which it claimed Turkey imposes on Armenia, the state-run Anatolian Agency reported Saturday.
Adam Schiff, an MP of U.S. Democrat Party, prepared the bill. Schiff is known as leading Armenian initiatives in the House of Representatives.
The bill envisages U.S. to launch initiatives for the removal of the alleged embargo and U.S. Secretary of State to prepare a report for the Congress about the incidents.
The same text should be submitted to the senate and the bill should be adopted both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate and should be signed by U.S. President in order to be enacted.
Armenian lobby in the United States had submitted a similar bill two years ago but the bill has not been presented to the agenda of the House of Representatives.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic links after Ankara severed ties in protest against Armenian control and violence in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia invaded in a war with Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. The border between Turkey and Armenia has been closed.
Armenia's genocide claims are another problem in two countries' relations. Armenia, with the backing of the diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. However 300,000 Armenians along with at least as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when the Armenians took up arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.