SENATOR BLOCKS VOTE ON AMBASSADOR NOMINEE TO ARMENIA TO PROTEST U.S. GENOCIDE POLICY
By: Donna De La Cruz, AP Worldstream

Associated Press
Sept 12 2006

A senator put a hold Tuesday on the nomination of Richard Hoagland to
be ambassador to Armenia to protest the Bush administration’s refusal
to classify the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.

Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 13-5 to send
Hoagland’s nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Until Democratic
Sen. Robert Menendez lifts his hold, however, the Senate cannot vote
on Hoagland’s nomination. Under Senate rules, any senator can block
nominations or legislation.

Menendez said all Americans must recognize the atrocities committed
between 1915 to 1923 in Armenia, during the waning days of the Ottoman
Empire, amounted to genocide. The Bush administration and Turkey,
successor to the Ottoman state, admit many Armenians died but reject
the genocide classification.

"Mr. Hoagland has declined to acknowledge the mass killings of the
Armenians as genocide, and has said that if confirmed, he would work
to represent the president’s policy," Menendez said. "I have great
concerns that Mr. Hoagland’s confirmation would be a step backward."

The Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Republican Sen. Richard
Lugar, has said the Senate should not withhold confirmation of Hoagland
"based on disagreements with administration policy." Lugar has said
Armenia, which borders Iran, Turkey and Azerbaijan, is an important
country that should not be left without a U.S. ambassador.

Hoagland would not use the word genocide at his confirmation hearing
in June to describe the killings. The current ambassador, John Evans,
reportedly had his tour of duty cut short because, in a social setting,
he referred to the killings as genocide.

Turkey, an important NATO ally, has strongly denounced the
characterization, and U.S. policymakers are wary of antagonizing that
country major ally.

The Bush administration does not question that Ottoman troops killed
or drove from their homes 1.5 million Armenians starting in 1915. In
a presidential message on the 91st anniversary April 24, President
George W. Bush called it "a terrible chapter of history" that "remains
a source of pain for people in Armenia and for all those who believe
in freedom, tolerance and the dignity and value of every human life."

As in previous such messages, he omitted using the word "genocide."