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Armenian Diaspora, Politicians Protest Bryza's Diplomatic Nomination

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  • Armenian Diaspora, Politicians Protest Bryza's Diplomatic Nomination

    ARMENIAN DIASPORA, POLITICIANS PROTEST BRYZA'S DIPLOMATIC NOMINATION AS BAKU ENVOY
    Marianna Grigoryan

    EurasiaNet.org
    June 1 2010
    NY

    US President Barack Obama's nomination of onetime Nagorno-Karabakh
    conflict mediator Matthew Bryza to be Washington's envoy to Azerbaijan
    is sparking opposition from Armenian diaspora organizations and from
    within Armenia itself.

    Obama's May 25 nomination statement described Bryza and one other
    ambassadorial nominee as "talented and dedicated individuals." During a
    22-year diplomatic career, Bryza has served in Moscow and Warsaw, and
    has held advisory positions within the National Security Council and
    White House. During those stints he worked closely on energy policy
    planning for the Caspian Sea region. In his last post, as deputy
    assistant secretary of state of European and Eurasian affairs, Bryza
    served as the US chairperson of the Minsk Group, the Organization for
    Security and Cooperation in Europe's vehicle for overseeing talks
    between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh
    region. [For background see EurasiaNet's archive].

    Some US-based Armenian diaspora organizations have expressed
    doubt that Bryza can function as an unbiased and balanced envoy to
    Azerbaijan. They are likely to lobby against the appointment during
    confirmation hearings in the US Senate. Armenia's Ministry of Foreign
    Affairs has not yet commented on the nomination.

    Diaspora objections target both the professional and the personal. The
    friendly connections that Bryza built with Azerbaijani and Turkish
    officials while working on energy projects sparks much of the concern
    - the attendance of such officials at his 2007 wedding in Istanbul
    is cited as a case in point. In addition, some diaspora members take
    issue with Bryza's marriage to an ethnic Turk, foreign policy analyst
    Zeyno Baran, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Eurasian
    Policy, based in Washington.

    "The members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should
    closely scrutinize Bryza's nomination to ensure that, if confirmed,
    he represents US interests in Baku, and not the other way around,
    since both he and his wife, Zeyno Baran, have had extensive ties with
    both Turkey and Azerbaijan," commented Harut Sassounian , publisher
    and editor of The California Courier newspaper and head of the United
    Armenian Fund, in a May 25 commentary that was reprinted in many
    Armenian newspapers.

    At a 2007 press conference in Yerevan, Bryza was asked whether he
    consulted with his wife on the Karabakh negotiations. He insisted
    that he keeps private matters separate from policy concerns. "My
    family life and work go separately. I put my heart and soul into my
    professional activities, and so do I in my private life," he said.

    Some Armenian politicians say they are unsettled by Bryza's ties to
    members of the Azerbaijani and Turkish governments. Such connections
    could work against Armenia's interests, they argue.

    "The number one objective for the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs is
    their impartiality, and Matthew Bryza has several times demonstrated
    bias against Armenians. So our concerns are not groundless," Naira
    Zohrabian, a senior member of the governing coalition's Prosperous
    Armenia Party, asserted in reference to statements allegedly made
    by Bryza about an Armenian withdrawal from territory surrounding
    Karabakh. "[W]e hope that the USA will be consistent in the southern
    Caucasus, and will abstain from double standards when considering
    his nomination as an ambassador."

    Manvel Sargsian, a senior political expert with Yerevan's Armenian
    Center for National and International Studies, expressed concern about
    what he termed "his unscrupulous and tough statements" as a co-chair
    of the Minsk Group. "I don't think some official can cause serious
    realignments [in US policy], but a candidate for this position must
    be really unbiased and impartial," Sargsian said. "In this regard,
    the concerns are justified, and this is particularly vivid in the
    Diaspora."

    One of the most influential US Armenian Diaspora organizations, the
    Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), has already launched an
    online campaign urging Armenian-Americans to email their senators and
    ask that they closely scrutinize Bryza's "track record and testimony"
    on points ranging from the recognition of Ottoman Turkey's 1915
    massacre of ethnic Armenians as genocide to Azerbaijan's blockade of
    Armenia and the alleged destruction of Armenian religious monuments.

    "[W]e continue to have an array of concerns about Mr. Bryza's conduct
    of US diplomacy - as an NSC [National Security Council] official,
    a deputy assistant secretary of state, and as the US negotiator in
    the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process - and, as such, look forward to
    a vigorous process of advice and consent by the Senate," said ANCA
    Executive Director Aram Hamparian in a May 25 statement.

    Not all Armenian politicians are ready to criticize Bryza's
    nomination. Stepan Safarian, head of the opposition Heritage Party's
    parliamentary faction, calls Bryza's work as a Minsk Group co-chair
    "rather active and dynamic." Safarian added that Bryza's knowledge of
    "the peculiarities of Armenia and Azerbaijan" could prove "a big asset"
    to him as ambassador to Baku.

    Suren Surenyants, a member of the opposition Republic Party's
    political board, echoed that appraisal. "We all have a complex about
    inventing non-existent problems," Surenyants said. "There is nothing
    extraordinary in appointing Bryza as an ambassador. He must not be
    a friend or an enemy to anyone; he will continue working for the US
    government just the way he used to work before."

    Editor's note: Marianna Grigoryan is a freelance reporter based
    in Yerevan.




    From: A. Papazian
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