At least four reasons why Matthew Bryza shouldn’t represent US in Azerbaijan
10:48 – 31.07.10
US Senator John Kerry (D-MA), Chairman of the Foreign Relations
Committee, today announced that his panel will hold a vote next
Tuesday, August 3rd, on the confirmation of Matthew Bryza, President
Obama’s controversial nominee to serve U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan,
despite the nominee’s evasive and incomplete answers to a series of
written questions submitted to him by Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-NV) and key members of this influential panel, reported the
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA)
“Mr. Bryza’s evasive, unresponsive, and incomplete written answers to
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, even more than his spoken
testimony before this panel, confirm our reservations about his
troubling track record, and clearly confirm that he is not the right
person to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan,” said Aram
Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA.
“American diplomacy in the region would be well served by a fresh
start, with a new ambassador who doesn’t have deep ties into
Azerbaijan’s corrupt government, a history of turning a blind-eye to
Baku’s aggression, or serious conflict of interest issues.”
“We want to thank Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and offer our
sincere appreciation to Senators Boxer and Menendez and all the those
who have worked hard to ensure that we send an ambassador to Baku who
can effectively represent U.S. interests, persuasively advance
American values, and – crucially, for the cause of peace – constrain
an increasingly belligerent Aliyev regime from acting on its threats
of renewed war,” added Hamparian.
Bryza’s July 22nd confirmation hearing before the Foreign Relations
Committee raised more questions than answered on a range of issues,
prompting Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Russ
Feingold (D-WI) and Chairman Kerry to submit written questions to the
nominee and, significantly, prompted a detailed letter of inquiry to
the State Department directly from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Azerbaijani Aggression:
During Bryza’s July 22nd committee appearance, he confirmed, for the
first time by an Administration official, the widely reported
news that Azerbaijan had, in fact, initiated the June 18, 2010
incident on the Nagorno Karabagh frontier that led to the death of
four Nagorno Karabagh and one Azerbaijani soldier. In response to a
question from Senator Boxer, he acknowledged Azerbaijan sparked the
conflict, but then sought to deflect responsibility onto Nagorno
Karabagh forces, which he mistakenly described as
“Armenia[n],” stating: “There was an Azerbaijani movement across the
line of contact, Armenia responded, resulting in deaths.” In
response to Senator Boxer’s follow-up written question asking “Why
hasn’t the U.S. government been more forceful in its condemnation of
Azerbaijan,” Bryza retreated from his cautious spoken remarks, saying
only that: “the full details of what occurred on June 18 are not
known.”
In response to a separate written question by Senator Boxer as to
whether Azerbaijan’s June 18th attack against Nagorno Karabagh
represented a violation of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act,
which restricts U.S. aid to Azerbaijan unless it takes demonstrable
steps to cease offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno
Karabakh, Bryza repeated: “The full details of what occurred on June
18 are not known,” and then went on to defend the Administration’s
waiver of Section 907 and to generally praise Azerbaijan as a
“important security partner” to the United States.
Azerbaijan’s Desecration of the Djulfa Cemetery In response to written
inquiries about Bryza’s prolonged silence in the wake of Azerbaijan’s
December 2005 demolition of the Armenian cemetery in Djulfa, Bryza
argued that he had made private comments on this matter to Azerbaijani
Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, but could not point to any public
remarks until March of the following year, when he was confronted with
questions on this subject by journalists at a Yerevan press
conference. In the nearly three month period of Bryza’s silence on
Djulfa, this issue was covered in the international media and publicly
condemned by U.S. Members of Congress, international NGOs, and the
full European Parliament.
Conflict of Interest:
In response to concerns by Sen. Menendez regarding conflict of
interest issues that arose regarding Bryza’s wife, Zeyno Baran, and
her professional work at the Hudson Institute advocating on U.S.
policy toward Azerbaijan and the Caspian region, Bryza argued that,
since January 2009, Baran had “shifted the focus of her work” from the
South Caucasus to “Islam, democracy and extremism in Europe and the
United States.” (A Google search reveals numerous instances of public
commentary by Baran regarding the South Caucasus since 2009.)
The source of the funding for Baran’s Center for Eurasia Policy
program at the Hudson Institute remains unclear. The Hudson
Institute has, as of today, refused to respond to a June 3, 2010
written request from the ANCA that it publicly share its sources of
funding from Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Fast-tracking of Nomination
An editorial published on Julky 30 in The Armenian Weekly voiced the
Armenian American community’s frustration with the Senator Kerry’s
fast-tracking of the Bryza nomination. “All citizens and Senators
deserve a chance to meaningfully participate in the important
Constitutional process of ambassadorial confirmations, especially when
vital life-and-death issues are at stake, as they are in Nagorno
Karabagh,” noted the Weekly. “As Chairman of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee and a Senator representing America’s oldest and
one of its largest Armenian American communities, John Kerry should
put the brakes on the Bryza nomination.”
Tert.am
From: A. Papazian