A spokesman for Armenia’s president has denied the statement ascribed to United States Vice President Joe Biden in which the latter purportedly said that Serzh Sargsyan had asked him not to “force” the Armenian genocide issue while talks on Turkish-Armenian normalization were in progress. Several days ago, an anonymous source posted footage, apparently taken secretly, on an online video-sharing website, YouTube, which was later picked up by a number of media in Diaspora and Armenia proper, in which United States Vice President Joe Biden is shown talking to an Armenian activist. In response to the Armenian activist’s question as to “what is the message that we should be giving to our community?” regarding the pledge of the Obama Administration to affirm the Armenian genocide, the person presented as Joe Biden says: “What you should be giving to your community is that we are not backing off. The Turks have to come to the realization of what the reality is. And what we got to do is, you know, this, the compromise that was going on and being worked at for a while… Tell them that it was the Armenian President that called me and said ‘Look, do not force this issue now, while we are in negotiations.’ We passed. That’s past right now. So anyway, reality has a way of intruding.” Yesterday responding to the question concerning the video posted on YouTube by an anonymous source this morning which is allegedly ascribed to Joe Biden – Vice President of the United States, the Press Secretary of the President of Armenia Armen Arzumanyan made the following statement: “The President of Armenia has never made calls to the Vice President of the United States Joe Biden. There were two phone calls initiated by the latter in 2009 and during those calls the President of Armenia did not use the expression ascribed to him in the video – directly or indirectly. On the contrary, in all public appearances and during official meetings, the President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan has been emphasizing the importance of the international recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide and has been urging not to excuse the procrastination of the recognition by the ongoing negotiations with Turkey. Being confident that the White House possesses all the official records of all phone calls made by the Vice President of the United States and his video recordings, the Administration of the President of Armenia gives its official consent to publish the recording of the mentioned phone call.”
