WASHINGTON—The US State Department on Friday, October 23, said it continued to support the normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations without preconditions
During a State Department press briefing, Spokesperson Ian Kelly was asked to comment on the US position on Turkey’s repeated demands that Armenia must resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan before relations between the two countries can be normalized.
“Right after signing the Turkish-Armenian Protocols in Zurich, the Turkish foreign ministry announced that they will open the border with Armenia after Nagorno-Karabakh problem was resolved, putting a kind of precondition, while there were no preconditions in protocols themselves. So my question is: Does the U.S. Government change its position, or [does] State Department still support the reopening of the border and normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations without any [preconditions.],” asked a reporter from Armenian public television.
Kelly responded that the State Department had not changed its position. “We support the protocol that was signed in Switzerland. And we have all along supported the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia without preconditions, and our policy has been very clear on that.
