SEN. MENENDEZ CROSS-EXAMINES AMBASSADORIAL NOMINEE FOR ARMENIA

Yerkir
20.06.2008 14:12

Yerevan (Yerkir) – Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) castigated the Bush
Administration’s policy of Armenian Genocide denial, today,
dramatically pressing U.S. Ambassadorial nominee to Armenia Marie
Yovanovitch regarding the Administration’s refusal to properly
characterize Ottoman Turkey’s systematic destruction of its Armenian
population as a genocide, reported the Armenian National Committee
of America (ANCA).

The Associated Press, in an article today entitled "Nominee Refuses to
Call Killings Genocide," noted Senator Menendez’s "intense questioning"
and the "prosecutorial style" of his inquiries during the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing. The AP article,
which was also carried by MSNBC and other media outlets, quoted ANCA
Executive Director Aram Hamparian as saying, after the hearing, that,
"we were troubled by Ambassador Yovanovitch’s refusal to offer any
meaningful rationale for the Administration’s ongoing complicity in
Turkey’s denials."

Sen. Menendez, who had placed two consecutive holds on previous
ambassadorial nominee Dick Hoagland for denying the Armenian Genocide,
meticulously questioned Yovanovitch by presenting historical State
Department documents from the time of the Genocide and comparing
those statements with her opening remarks.

"The US government – and certainly I – acknowledges and mourns the mass
killings, ethnic cleansing and forced deportations that devastated over
one and a half million Armenians at the end of the Ottoman Empire,"
said Yovanovich in her opening testimony.

Following these remarks, Sen. Menendez presented the nominee with
several documents quoting U.S. Ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire
Henry Morgethau and Abram Elkus, and other U.S. diplomats who served
in the region at the time of the Armenian Genocide and documented
the destruction of the Armenian population.

Juxtaposing the eyewitness accounts of these U.S. officials with
the definition of the crime as outlined by the U.N. Convention on
the Punishment and Prevention of the Crime of Genocide, Sen. Menendez
asked whether the President’s annual April 24th remarks, Yovanovitch’s
prepared statements, and her responses regarding U.S. diplomatic
reporting matched the U.N. Convention, to which the U.S. is a
party. Amb. Yovanovitch sidestepped this question, stating instead
that it is the President and the State Department who set the policy
of defining historic events. In her testimony, she publicly confirmed
that "It has been President Bush’s policy, as well as that of previous
presidents of both parties, not to use that term."

Sen. Menendez responded, "It is a shame that career foreign service
officers have to be brought before the Committee and find difficulty
in acknowledging historical facts, and find difficulty in acknowledging
the realities of what has been internationally recognized." He went on
to state, "And it is amazing to me that we can talk about millions, a
million and a half human beings who were slaughtered, we can talk about
those who were raped, we can talk about those who were forcibly pushed
out of their country, and we can have presidential acknowledgements of
that, but then we cannot call it what it is. It is a ridiculous dance
that the Administration is doing on the use of the term genocide. It is
an attempt to suggest that we don’t want to strain our relationships
with Turkey… I believe acknowledging historical facts as they are
is a principal that is easily understood both at home and abroad.

So while the Administration believes that this policy benefits us
vis-a-vis our relationship with Turkey, I think they should also
recognize that it hurts our relationship elsewhere and it tarnishes
the United States’ history of being a place where truth is spoken
to power, and acknowledgment of our failures of the past make us
stronger, not weaker; recognizing the evils of the past do not trap
us, but they set us free."

"We join with Armenian Americans across the nation in thanking
Senator Menendez for his courage and determination in holding the Bush
Administration accountable for its deeply flawed policy of enabling
Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide," said ANCA Executive Director
Aram Hamparian. "Today’s Senate hearing with Ambassador Yovanovitch,
much like yesterday’s testimony before a U.S. House panel by Assistant
Secretary Fried, confirms the sad reality that our government has
allowed a foreign nation to impose a ‘gag rule’ on America’s right
to speak truthfully about the Armenian Genocide."

"We look forward to carefully reviewing Ambassador Yovanovitch’s
responses to the written questions that will be posed by Members
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in order to get a fuller
understanding of her ability to effectively represent U.S. interests
and American values as our Ambassador to Yerevan," added Hamparian.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) who chaired the confirmation hearing concurred
with Sen. Menendez, noting that "there is no question in my mind,
that facts speak for themselves, and what happened was genocide… In
Armenia we need an ambassador… who understands the historical facts,
and has the historical facts correctly stated." Sen. Cardin also
questioned Amb. Yovanovitch on the recent elections in Armenia and
urged the Ambassadorial nominee to Austria to help secure Austria’s
support for Turkey’s membership in the European Union.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) released a statement to coincide with
Amb. Yavanovitch’s confirmation hearing, noting her outrage at the
firing of former U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Evans for speaking
truthfully about the Genocide. "It is bad enough that Armenians
everywhere have to endure a U.S. President who refuses to acknowledge
the Armenian Genocide despite earlier promises to the contrary. But
Armenians were also recently forced to witness the dismissal of
a career U.S. diplomat, Ambassador John Evans, who expressed his
personal view that it is long past time that the United States call
one of the greatest events of deliberate mass murder in the 20th
century by its rightful name — genocide… I could not agree with
Ambassador Evans more."

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has submitted a set of questions for the
record in which he reaffirmed the importance of recognizing the
killing of 1.5 million Armenians from 1915 to 1923 as genocide.