Turkey’s foreign minister on Friday demanded a clear stance from the United States on the Turkish-Armenian normalization process after a congressional panel approved an Armenian “genocide” resolution.

“We don’t want to go through this crisis every spring,” Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in a press conference Friday. “That is why we introduced the normalization of the relationship with Armenia. We thought that this would begin to settle things, and we really did not expect this kind of backlash.” Read more…

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Today, the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent a signal to the world that the US is willing to sacrifice one of its most important, long-term strategic relationships for short-sighted political gains driven by an ethnic lobby. The Committee members who have voted for the Resolution have ignored their primary mandates of resolving the immediate and pressing concerns in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and other troubled parts of the world, and voted to waste the taxpayers’ time and money on a resolution that will alienate a key ally and trading partner.

H.Res.252, like previous incarnations of the so-called “Armenian genocide” resolution, should never have been on the docket of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congress is neither the ‘conscience’ of the world, nor its historian. There are significant errors in the version of history that Congress is trying to legislate, and the passage of H.Res.252 will bury the truth under a mound of politics. Read more…

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Days before the March 4 vote in the U.S. House foreign affairs committee regarding a resolution on Armenian allegations related to the incidents of 1915, U.S. officials said Obama administration would continue to encourage Turkey and Armenia to move forward, not look backward.

At a daily press briefing on Tuesday, spokesman for the U.S. Department of State Philip Crowley said Washington supported the current process for normalized relations between Turkey and Armenia.

At a ceremony in Switzerland last October, Turkish and Armenian foreign ministers signed protocols to normalize relations. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also present at the signing ceremony. Read more…

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“Statements by the Armenian lobby and plans of the Committee on Foreign Relations of U.S. House of Representatives are not surprising. Even if the protocols are ratified by the parliaments of Turkey and Armenia, the Armenian lobby will still be forcing some members of Congress to put some sort of resolution to a vote in subcommittees, committees and plenary sessions. The Armenian lobby cannot stop doing it because this kind of resolution is culmination of all their efforts,” Adil Bagirov, candidate of political sciences, the U.S. Azeris Network Executive Director said. Read more…

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News.Az interviews Dr Adil Baguirov, managing director and co-founder of the US Azeris Network (USAN).

What is USAN doing about the United States census in 2010?

The US Azeris Network (USAN), as well as our sister organization the US Turkic Network (USTN), became the first-ever not only Azerbaijani-American, but also Turkic-American organizations to be recognized officially as partners by the US Census Bureau for the 2010 Census. We immediately started raising awareness and promoting this partnership as well as the need to participate in the Census among the Azerbaijani-American and Turkic-American community. We will continue this in the next few months before and after the census starts. Read more…

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