YEREVAN, JULY 9, NOYAN TAPAN. There will hardly be any progress in Armenian-Turkish relations and the Karabakh conflict settlement until September. Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of Armenia's National Academy of Sciences, Turkologist Ruben Safrastian expressed this opinion during the July 8 meeting at Henaket Club. He attached importance to the visit that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is expected to pay to Armenia in August. According to R. Safrastian, this visit will make Azerbaijan take its obligations to observe the ceasefire a bit more seriously. He said that in principle the regional visit of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not changed anything. He underlined the importance of the fact that "H. Clinton visited the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Tsitsernakaberd in a private capacity". In R. Safrastian's words, this cannot satisfy the Armenian people who are convinced that such a country as the United States should have condemned the Armenian Genocide long ago as the worst crime. However, in the context of Armenian-Turkish relations, this step of H. Clinton should be viewed as a message to Turkey: the Americans once again threatened Turkey that the U.S. is likely to recognize the Armenian Genocide unless Turkey makes concessions over some issues. R. Safrastian pointed out H. Clinton's words: "Now the ball in the other (NT: Turkish) court". He noted that in this way the U.S. showed once again that it remains true to its position on the Armenian-Turkish normalization and that it "is happy with Armenia's position and expects Turkey to take certain steps". R. Safrastian shared the opinion that Hillary Clinton's visit also aimed to keep Azerbaijan from attempts to further escalate the conflict, which was evident from H. Clinton's statement in Baku that the sides should avoid using force.

---