DO ARMENIAN ORGANIZATIONS IN THE U.S.A. DELAY THEIR APPROVAL OF U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA?

PanARMENIAN.Net
15.07.2008 GMT+04:00

Interests of the U.S.A. depend on more important issues rather than
the recognition of "Great massacre" as genocide, which would urge
Washington to reconsider her foreign policy.

It is rather difficult to predict the results of the U.S. Senate’s
voting on the candidacy of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Marie
Yovanovitch. If we share the viewpoint of the Armenian Community in
the U.S.A. in the person of the Armenian National Committee of America
(ANCA), under the current Administration Armenia has no chances to
have a U.S. Ambassador. "We remain troubled by Yovanovitch’s evasive
answers and her absolute refusal to offer anything approaching
a reasonable or factually supportable explanation of the reasons
behind Administration’s misguided policy on the Armenian Genocide,"
declared Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Hamparian is sure that the Armenian American
community will never allow an Ambassador to Armenia who denies the
Armenian Genocide. "Reputation of a nation is put at stake when
demanding high-rank diplomats to lie or to distort the truth in
compliance with the country’s foreign policy. The policy of denying
the Armenian Genocide, which is known to everyone, is a result of
pressure exerted by the Turkish Government, which undermines our
confidence," Hamparian noted. If the problem is in the use of the term
"genocide", Hamparian is right. However, in the commission hearings
Ambassador-Designate Marie Yovanovitch said exactly the following:
"The U.S. 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. The United States recognizes these events as one of the
greatest tragedies of the 20th century, the "Medz Yeghern" or Great
Calamity, as many Armenians refer to it. That is why every April the
President honors the victims and expresses American solidarity with
the Armenian people on Remembrance Day." How else could Yovanovitch
characterize the events of 1915? She said more than she could,
we suppose.

In fact, the term "genocide" is missing in the statements of Marie
Yovanovitch. However, it is quite logical, as it has been President
Bush’s policy, as well as that of previous presidents of both parties,
not to use that term. It is quite possible that the pressure of the
Turkish Government is too intense. But there are also the interests
of the U.S.A., which depend on more important issues rather than
the recognition of "Great massacre" as genocide, which would urge
Washington to reconsider her foreign policy. Once again the Armenians
pin their hopes on the U.S. Presidential candidate, who, in this
particular case, is Barack Obama. But is there any guarantee that
elected a president, Obama will repeat the words of Ronald Reagan on
the Armenian Genocide?

On May 24, 1920 President Woodrow Wilson referred to the Congress
underlining the severe massacre and forced deportation that the
Armenians experienced at the time of the World War I. The fact that
the concept of Â"genocideÂ" did not exist at that time does not mean
that massacre and deportation were not carried out then. On February
9, 1916 based on the reports of Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to
the Ottoman Empire, the U.S. Senate signed a declaration on massacre
and forced deportation of 1.5 million Armenians and on August 6,
1919 the U.S. Congress passed a concurrent resolution.

In the Congress documents the term "Armenian Genocide" appeared in 1975
only. But then Turkey became a strategic ally of the U.S.A. against
the USSR. American missiles and monitoring stations were installed
right on the Armenian border, and U.S. foreign policy radically
changed. Moreover, America began to openly support Israel against
the Arabs, and the issue of recognizing or denying the Armenian
Genocide was set aside. And now, when Yerevan is badly in need for a
U.S. Ambassador, Armenian organizations delay their approval, which,
by the way, is quite favorable to Turkey.

The issue of appointing a new U.S. Ambassador to Armenia was also
discussed at the meeting of RA Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian
and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The RA Foreign
Minister expressed hope that candidature of the new Ambassador
would be soon confirmed, which would encourage development of the
Armenian-U.S. relations.

In her response to Senator Obama’s written inquiry Marie Yovanovitch
noted that the U.S. Embassy in Ankara is committed to working with
the Government of Turkey on ways in which the atrocities of 1915
can be studied. "Besides, the Administration is currently laying
the groundwork for an International Visitor Program that would bring
archivists from the Turkish State Archives to the U.S. to look at the
ways in which we do historical research. As a confidence building
measure, the U.S. Government has contacted Armenian archivists
to participate in the program, in the hope that, upon return, the
archivists from both countries could work together on a joint program
that would study the issue.

In addition, our Embassies in Armenia and Turkey take every opportunity
in meetings with the Governments of these two countries, and with
civil society leaders from both countries, to encourage improved
dialogue between them," Yovanovitch concluded.

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