Evaluating relations between Turkey and United States before visit of Barack Obama to Turkey, political expert at think tank organization RAND, Larabee said that recognition of so called Armenian genocide would be a big risk for Turkish-American relations.
One of the think tank organization working for U.S. Defence Ministry, RAND evaluated Turkey-US relations before visit of Barack Obama to Turkey. One of the experienced politics analyst of the think tank organization, Dr. F. Stephen Larrabee stated that Obama decided to pay a visit to Turkey to fix the damages in ties that formed during Bush administration and he added, “But a possible approval of Armenian resolution in April would ruin the recent development in Turkish-U.S. ties. Efforts for healing relations would be wasted. A big catastrophe would take place.”
Larrabee stated that foreign policy interests of two countries coincides and said, “Justice and Development Party and Obama administration’s foreign policy choices do coincide. Turkey backs normalization of ties of U.S. with Syria and Iran. Obama struggles fort he same.”
Mentioning pledges of Obama over recognizing 1915 events as “Armenian genocide”, Larrabee said, “Pledges during the elections and actions during the management may differ. Obama knows how important Turkey is. He probably will play the “win-win” strategy. Every party loses in case of a recognition.”