Wikileaks releases secret cables
Wikileaks, an international organization publishing confidential and unavailable documents from anonymous sources, released more than 250,000 classified US diplomatic cables to El Pais, Le Monde, Der Spiegal, Guardian and the New York Times news organization today.
In one of the cables, talking to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev uses coarse street slang to describe the relationship between Russian President Medvedev and PM Putin and to express his concerns about Turkey-Armenia reconciliation and the Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) Peace Process.
Aliyev said they are ready to continue the talks on the Karabakh conflict and suggested the USA to apply maximum pressure on Yerevan to make concessions on NK.
Burns stressed that the U.S. believes that Armenia will be more flexible on NK. He said it is important that Armenia-Turkey rapprochement pave political grounds for the resolution of the Karabakh conflict.
Documents relating to Armenia date back to December 24, 2008. The U.S. believes that in 2003 Armenia sold missiles and machineguns to Iran, which caused anger in Washington.
"According to our laws, in such cases the U.S. may impose sanctions on the country that supplies missiles to other countries. To avoid sanctions your government should guarantee that it will not repeat in the future," the U.S. said in a letter to the RA Government.
The White House response came hours after WikiLeaks released the cables sent from US embassies across the globe to several newspapers, causing further embarrassment to Washington on a diplomatic level
Washington said that the publication of diplomatic exchanges would "create tension" between American diplomats and friends around the world.
