White House won`t link its position on Genocide recognition in 2015 with Armenian position on Crimea, told Wayne Merry, Senior Fellow for Europe and Eurasia with the American Foreign Policy Council, to Armenia News – NEWS.am correspondent. If the United States government says anything about the Armenian Genocide, it will do so on the historical basis and will not try to tie that issue with any other one, particularly with nothing concerning Crimea. «I cannot imagine the United States government trying to establish a quid pro quo between the Armenian Genocide and any other issue», he told.

Speaking on Armenia`s position on Crimea, he told he couldn`t find it particularly surprising. «It will cause some irritation in relations between Armenia and some European countries and certainly with the United States. I know that our Ambassador, Mr. John Heffern, has already spoken rather sharply on Armenian action», he told. Still, he found it too soon to say how the situation about Crimea may affect relations between Washington and Yerevan.

On March 27, Armenia voted against the UN non-binding resolution against Crimea secession in the General Assembly, along with 10 other states, including Russia and Belarus.

Speaking further on the rationale of the position of Armenia, who sought the prevalence of the right of self-determination of peoples over the principle of territorial integrity, he told that it`s difficult to draw comparisons between the cases of Crimea and Nagorno Karabakh.

The problem for the United States, he added, is its sponsorship of the independence of Kosovo. It has created a significant precedent, which the Russian government has been eager to apply in the case of Crimea, even though these two are not exactly comparable, he told.

«As to Karabakh, its problem now is not so much the question of the status, as the ongoing state of war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And that is very different from Crimea», he added.