PRO-ARMENIAN SENATOR DELAYS US AMBASSADORIAL NOMINEE’S CONFIRMATION

Today’s Zaman
June 26 2008
Turkey

US Senator Barbara Boxer has secured a one-month delay in procedure
for confirmation by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the
administration’s nominee for US ambassador to Armenia, Armenian media
reports say.

Boxer, a Democrat, secured the delay in response to the State
Department’s delay in providing timely written responses to the
eight sets of written questions submitted to career diplomat Marie
Yovanovitch, current ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic, by members of
the panel, influential Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
Communications Director Elizabeth S. Chouldjian said, PanARMENIAN.Net
reported yesterday. Last week, during her confirmation hearing before
the Foreign Relations Committee, Yovanovitch responded to a salvo of
questions posed by Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who blocked
the Bush administration’s previous nominee over his refusal to call
killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in the last century
"genocide," in line with the US administration’s policy.

Nevertheless, Yovanovitch rejected use of the term "genocide" to
describe the early 20th century deaths of Ottoman Armenians out of
political considerations, saying that using the term would contradict
the US administration’s policy on the issue.

Boxer released a written statement in which she criticized US policy
on the Armenian issue, especially taking into consideration the
fact that the administration has called killings in Darfur genocide,
but refused to do so in the Armenian case.