Tweet
SENATOR MENENDEZ CALLS FOR DELAY IN CONSIDERATION OF U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA NOMINEE JOHN HEFFERN
ARMENPRESS
July 27, 2011
YEREVAN
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at the request of Senator
Robert Menendez (D-NJ), today deferred consideration of U.S.
Ambassador to Armenia nominee John Heffern until its next business
meeting, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
The panel's Chairman, John Kerry (D-MA), announced at today's business
meeting that the Heffern nomination had been "carried over," a move
typically used by Senators to allow additional time
to review a nominee's credentials and testimony.
"We would like to thank Senator Menendez for affording his colleagues
greater time to scrutinize and make an informed determination,"
stated ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. "As
a matter of policy, we remain deeply troubled that the Administration's
complicity in Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide so manifestly
fails to meet the clear-cut moral standard set by President Obama
during his tenure on this very Senate panel. The painful spectacle of
watching a senior U.S. diplomat forced to dance and dodge around the
plain truth - in the service of a patently immoral policy imposed
upon America by a foreign government - undermines U.S. interests,
and compromises American values."
During Mr. Heffern's July 13th confirmation hearing, Sen. Menendez
pressed him regarding the Obama Administration position regarding the
Armenian Genocide, and also about his own understanding of this crime.
The nominee cited the killing of over 1.5 million Armenians at the
end of the Ottoman Empire, but stopped short of properly referencing
these acts as "genocide," arguing that "the characterization of
those events is a policy decision that is made by the President of
the United States. He added that this policy is enunciated in the
President's April 24Remembrance Day
statement."
Senator Menendez remarked, "This is an inartful dance that we do. We
have a State Department whose history is full of dispatches that cite
the atrocities committed during this time. We have a convention that
we signed on to as a signatory that clearly defines these acts as
genocide. We have a historical knowledge of the facts that we accept
would amount to genocide. But we are unwilling
to reference it as genocide. And if we cannot accept the past,
we cannot move forward. And so I find it very difficult to send
diplomats of the United States to a country in which they will go -
and I hope you will go, as some of your predecessors have - to a
genocide commemoration and yet never be able to use the word genocide.
It is much more than a question of a word. It is
everything that signifies our commitment to saying 'never again.'
And yet, we can't even acknowledge this fact and we put diplomats in
a position that is totally untenable."
Sen. Menendez was echoing a 2008 statement by then Senator Barack
Obama, who, in questioning U.S. Ambassador to Armenia nominee Marie
Yovanovitch, expressed concern about the Bush Administration's position
on the issue. Then Senator Obama stated:
"Nearly 2 million Armenians were deported during the Armenian Genocide,
which was carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, and
approximately 1.5 million of those deported were killed.
It is imperative that we recognize the horrific acts carried out
against the Armenian people as genocide. The occurrence of the Armenian
genocide is a widely documented fact, supported by an
overwhelming collection of historical evidence. I was deeply disturbed
two years ago when the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia was fired after he
used the term 'genocide' to describe the mass
slaughter of Armenians. I called for Secretary Rice to examine what
I believe is an untenable position taken by the U.S. government."
ARMENPRESS
July 27, 2011
YEREVAN
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, at the request of Senator
Robert Menendez (D-NJ), today deferred consideration of U.S.
Ambassador to Armenia nominee John Heffern until its next business
meeting, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
The panel's Chairman, John Kerry (D-MA), announced at today's business
meeting that the Heffern nomination had been "carried over," a move
typically used by Senators to allow additional time
to review a nominee's credentials and testimony.
"We would like to thank Senator Menendez for affording his colleagues
greater time to scrutinize and make an informed determination,"
stated ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. "As
a matter of policy, we remain deeply troubled that the Administration's
complicity in Turkey's denial of the Armenian Genocide so manifestly
fails to meet the clear-cut moral standard set by President Obama
during his tenure on this very Senate panel. The painful spectacle of
watching a senior U.S. diplomat forced to dance and dodge around the
plain truth - in the service of a patently immoral policy imposed
upon America by a foreign government - undermines U.S. interests,
and compromises American values."
During Mr. Heffern's July 13th confirmation hearing, Sen. Menendez
pressed him regarding the Obama Administration position regarding the
Armenian Genocide, and also about his own understanding of this crime.
The nominee cited the killing of over 1.5 million Armenians at the
end of the Ottoman Empire, but stopped short of properly referencing
these acts as "genocide," arguing that "the characterization of
those events is a policy decision that is made by the President of
the United States. He added that this policy is enunciated in the
President's April 24Remembrance Day
statement."
Senator Menendez remarked, "This is an inartful dance that we do. We
have a State Department whose history is full of dispatches that cite
the atrocities committed during this time. We have a convention that
we signed on to as a signatory that clearly defines these acts as
genocide. We have a historical knowledge of the facts that we accept
would amount to genocide. But we are unwilling
to reference it as genocide. And if we cannot accept the past,
we cannot move forward. And so I find it very difficult to send
diplomats of the United States to a country in which they will go -
and I hope you will go, as some of your predecessors have - to a
genocide commemoration and yet never be able to use the word genocide.
It is much more than a question of a word. It is
everything that signifies our commitment to saying 'never again.'
And yet, we can't even acknowledge this fact and we put diplomats in
a position that is totally untenable."
Sen. Menendez was echoing a 2008 statement by then Senator Barack
Obama, who, in questioning U.S. Ambassador to Armenia nominee Marie
Yovanovitch, expressed concern about the Bush Administration's position
on the issue. Then Senator Obama stated:
"Nearly 2 million Armenians were deported during the Armenian Genocide,
which was carried out by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923, and
approximately 1.5 million of those deported were killed.
It is imperative that we recognize the horrific acts carried out
against the Armenian people as genocide. The occurrence of the Armenian
genocide is a widely documented fact, supported by an
overwhelming collection of historical evidence. I was deeply disturbed
two years ago when the U.S. Ambassador to Armenia was fired after he
used the term 'genocide' to describe the mass
slaughter of Armenians. I called for Secretary Rice to examine what
I believe is an untenable position taken by the U.S. government."