YEREVAN, OCTOBER 7, NOYAN TAPAN. During Armenian President Serzh Sargsan's stop in Los Angeles, he had a phone conversation with U.S. President Barack Obama on the initiative of the latter. According to the RA presidential press service, President Obama expressed his support for the Armenian president's efforts to achieve normalization of relations with Turkey. Barack Obama reaffirmed the United States's official position that Armenian-Turkish normalization should proceed without any preconditions and should not be linked to the Karabakh conflict settlement. Serzh Sargsyan thanked President Obama for the support in the process of Armenian-Turkish normalization and told him about his impressions of his pan-Armenian tour. In his words, the concerns and fears of the Armenian Diaspora regarding the process are natural, given the fact that the Armenian people was subjected to genocide by Ottoman Turkey, about which Barack Obama has repeatedly mentioned in his speeches. The Armenian president also thanked Barack Obama for the huge mediatory work done by the United States within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. He underlined Armenia's willingness to move forward towards achieving a peaceful solution of the Karabakh problem, which should be based on the decision of Karbakh people about their ultimate legal status by the free expreession of will, which is the basis of the Madrid Principles presented by the OSCE Minsk Group.

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