THE FIRST SERIOUS SIGNALS
Vardan Grigoryan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on Aug 01, 2008
Armenia

The discussions held by the US House of Foreign Affairs Committee over
the issue of appointing Maria Jovanovich as the new US Ambassador
in Armenia and the subsequent approval of her candidacy became the
successive occasion for clarifying Washington’s political attitudes
towards the recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

It is obvious that having received the approval of the Foreign
Affairs Committee of the Senate on July 29, Maria Jovanovich will be
confirmed in her new position in August, during the plenary session of
the Senate. This will put an end to the struggle for the appointment
of a new US Ambassador in the Republic of Armenia – a process that
lasted around 2 years.

Let’s bear in mind, however, that in that period a certain progress
was observed on the American political arena towards the recognition
of the Armenian Genocide. Apart from being confirmed by the relevant
committee of the Congress and receiving the approval of several
legislators from different states, the issue was consistently raised
by US Democratic candidate Barrack O’bama.

It’s not accidental that after the July 19 preliminary hearings held
by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Senate, Maria Jovanovich
sent a written reply to Barrack O’bama’s question concerning the
Armenian Genocide.20The letter reads as follows, "The US Government
and certainly I grieve over the mass killings, ethnic cleansings
and deportations which deprived 1.5 million Armenians of life in the
final era of the existence of the Ottoman Empire. The United States
of America considers these events as the greatest tragedy of the 20th
century – ‘Great Massacres’, as many Armenians are wont to say".

Maria Jovanovich supported the same viewpoint on July 29, during
the discussion of her candidacy by the Foreign Affairs Committee of
the Senate.

Of course, Robert Menendez and many other the Senators having a
consistent attitude towards the recognition of the Armenian Genocide
were not fully satisfied with the viewpoint, however, they estimated
it as a consequence of the political attitude of President George
Bush who is ending his term of office in a couple of months’ time. So,
their political campaign has now focused on raising the issue of the
recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the context of the upcoming
presidential elections.

owever, it is noteworthy that with the purpose of achieving the
approval of Maria Jovanovich’s candidacy by the Foreign Affairs
Committee of the Senate, the State Secretariat has also made certain
clarifications with regard to the issue of the Armenian Genocide. In
a letter addressed to Jo Byden, Chairman of the US House of Foreign
Affairs Committee, US Under-Secretary=2 0of State Mathew Reynolds
mentioned on behalf of the State Secretariat that Maria Jovanovich does
not question the events that happened in the Ottoman Empire in 1915."

Furthermore, M. Reynolds added that the State Secretariat also
acknowledges the fact that the government of the Ottoman Empire
carried out the mass killings, ethnic cleansings and deportations of
1.5 million Armenians.

"We really find that the officials of the Ottoman Empire are
accountable for those crimes," M. Reynolds mentioned in the concluding
part of his letter.

This means that the US Under-Secretary of State admits not only the
fact of the extermination and displacement of 1.5 million Armenians
but also the accountability of the Ottoman Empire, i.e. the Republic
of Turkey (its legal successor) for the state crime. That’s to say,
without officially characterizing the massacres of the Armenians as
"genocide", the United States already advances the issue of Turkey’s
accountability.

Formulating Turkey’s accountability for the 1915 events and introducing
it as a condition for the regulating the relations between Ankara
and Yerevan, the United States is:

1. separating the century-old Armenian-Turkish debate from the prospect
of the settlement of the Karabakh conflict,

2. proposing Turkey to give up the policy of imposing preconditions
upon Armenia,

3. introducing new and serious elements for increasing the potent
ial instability into the agenda of the debates between the moderate
Ã~Jemalists and the secular Kemalists.

We believe that after the appointment of the new Ambassador in Armenia,
the positive changes in the United States attitude towards the
recognition of the Armenian Genocide may become effective only after
the clarification of the policy of the new US administration. And
now they can be viewed as the first serious signals of the changes
expected in that policy.

–Boundary_(ID_Pd1ad/zUurRnXi6vpNmR0Q)–