WHILE US EX-AMBASSADOR IN ARMENIA "CALLS A SPADE A SPADE," CANDIDATURE OF NEW AMBASSADOR IS BLOCKED BY SENATE
Regnum, Russia
Jan 11 2007
Statement of US ex-ambassador to Armenia John Evans on the Armenian
Genocide "was not a slip of the tongue." He said that in an interview
to Los Angeles Times. "I knew it was not the policy of the United
States" to use the word "genocide," Evans said. "Ninety years is a long
time. At some point you have to call a spade a spade," John Evans said.
It worth mentioning, at a meeting with members of the Armenian
community in San Francisco on February 19, 2005, John Evans said:
"I will today call it the Armenian genocide." Later, on February 28,
2005, speaking at the US embassy to Armenia, John Evans elaborated
on his idea of February 19. The diplomat is quoted as saying by
PanArmenian.Net that he used the word "genocide" and it was his
personal point of view not as of a governmental official.
It is worth mentioning that after John Evans was recalled from the
post of the US ambassador to Armenia, no new ambassador has been
announced yet. The candidature of Richard Hoagland introduced by the
president was turned down by Senator Robert Menendez after Hoagland
made statements denying the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire
in 1915 that stirred negative reaction from public in Armenia as well
as in the Armenian Diaspora particularly in the United States.
