Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton huddled today with Armenian Foreign Minister H.E. Edward Nalbandian as the United States and Europe press Armenia and Turkey to seek better relations.

"I want to reiterate our very strong support for the normalization process that is going on between Armenia and Turkey, which we have long said should take place without preconditions and within a reasonable timeframe," Clinton said after the meeting.

"We will continue to work closely with the foreign minister and, of course, with his president and the Government of Armenia. And we also are very committed to the democratic development of Armenia," she added. "We want to be a partner and a friend in increasing prosperity and economic development as well. So this is a comprehensive relationship. We are very focused on this challenge of normalization which Armenia has demonstrated great commitment to, yet our relationship is much broader and much deeper in addition to that."

A month ago, Armenia and Turkey annouced that they would start final talks expected to take six weeks and aimed at establishing diplomatic ties after a century of enmity. They said in the joint statement that they would not discuss their deepest disagreement: the World War I-era massacres of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians under Ottoman rule.

In April, Obama also did his best to avoid that controversy in a closely-watched presidential message. The president refrained from calling the massacres a "genocide," instead referring to them as "one of the great atrocities of the 20th century." But that characterization still angered Turkey's president, who said Obama failed to honor Turks slain by Armenians.

The Boston area is home to one of the largest Amernian-American communities. Watertown has the third most Armenian immigrants.