‘GENOCIDE’ AT CENTER OF CONFIRMATION
by Michael Doyle
Fresno Bee (California)
June 19, 2008 Thursday
The career diplomat nominated to serve as the next U.S. ambassador
to Armenia almost certainly will avoid using the phrase "Armenian
genocide" at her Senate confirmation hearing today.
The big question, closely watched by Armenian-American activists,
is whether the Senate will still let nominee Marie Yovanovitch take
her post in Yerevan.
On Wednesday, Yovanovitch’s State Department boss made it clear that
Bush administration officials will continue steering away from the
genocide term when referring to the mass killings and forced exiles
that occurred in the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923. By some counts,
upward of 1.5 million Armenians died.
"The United States and the president have never denied any of the
events," Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told the House
Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday, but "we do not use the term
genocide to describe them."
Fried said it would be diplomatically imprudent to use a word that
incites considerable anger in Turkey, a vital U.S. military ally.
"We don’t use the term genocide, because we don’t think the use of
the term would lead to a reconciliation between Armenia and Turkey,"
Fried said.
Last year, Turkish leaders warned of dire diplomatic and military
consequences if the House of Representatives approved a nonbinding
Armenian genocide resolution. In an embarrassing defeat for House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., the resolution — which once seemed
on the brink of passing — stalled after more than two dozen House
members withdrew their support.
The resolution is now in limbo, with no sign that it will be
resurrected anytime soon. Politically, that leaves the confirmation
of the next U.S. ambassador to Armenia the primary battleground over
the genocide issue.
Bush nominated Yovanovitch in March to fill a position that’s been
vacant since 2006. The 1980 Princeton graduate previously served as
U.S. ambassador to the Kyrgyz Republic.
The last permanent U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, was recalled
in 2006 after he told audiences in Fresno, Los Angeles and the San
Francisco Bay Area that he had concluded that the 1915-1923 events
amounted to genocide. The Senate refused to confirm the first diplomat
nominated to replace Evans, Richard Hoagland, over genocide questions.
"Denying a traumatic event such as genocide, one cannot create, nor
implement, honest and effective diplomacy," Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif.,
advised Yovanovitch in writing earlier this year.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
