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Diplomatic dispute reopened

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  • Diplomatic dispute reopened

    Washington Times
    June 14 2012


    Embassy Row

    Diplomatic dispute reopened


    President Obama inevitably reopened a bedeviling dispute when he
    nominated a senior diplomat to serve as ambassador to Azerbaijan,
    which is locked in a deadly conflict with neighboring Armenia.

    Azerbaijan is rich in oil and natural gas and a key player in the
    Great Game of energy politics in the Caucasus. But Armenia is rich in
    the politics of Washington, where the landlocked nation with no energy
    resources has powerful friends on Capitol Hill.

    Whenever a U.S. president nominates an ambassador to either country,
    the longstanding conflict between the nations dominates the
    questioning at Senate confirmation hearings.

    Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Jeanne Shaheed of New
    Hampshire quizzed Richard Morningstar when he appeared before the
    Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week.

    The two senators, both Democrats who have a significant number of
    Armenian-Americans in their states, questioned Mr. Morningstar about
    Azerbaijan's relations with Armenia.

    Mr. Menendez noted that Azerbaijani President Ilam Aliyev recently
    warned that `our main enemies are the Armenians of the world.'

    Mr. Aliev added that `Armenians will live in fear' as long as they
    occupy an ethnic-Armenian enclave called Nagorno-Karabakh and
    surrounding areas, which comprise about 20 percent of Azerbaijan.

    The two countries fought a six-year war over the territory that ended
    in 1994 after the death of about 4,600 people and the displacement of
    more than 1 million.

    Mr. Morningstar, who has dealt with U.S. interests in the region as a
    special envoy, called those comments `counterproductive.' However, he
    also said the United States has an interest in selling military
    equipment to Azerbaijan to help it defend against possible aggression
    from Iran, its southern neighbor.

    Mr. Menendez asked Mr. Morningstar about the slaughter of 1.5 million
    Armenians in the Ottoman Turkish Empire during World War I.
    Armenian-Americans regularly pressure U.S. presidents to recognize the
    killings as the `Armenian Genocide,' but most U.S. leaders, including
    Mr. Obama, have called the massacre everything but `genocide' to avoid
    angering Turkey, a key NATO ally.

    `I have to ask you whether or not you contest any of the facts of what
    transpired in 1915, as it relates to 1.5 million Armenians who were
    brutally massacred and marched to their deaths in the waning days of
    the Ottoman Empire,' Mr. Menendez asked.

    `No, I do not,' Mr. Morningstar replied.

    Mr. Menendez helped block Mr. Obama's last choice for ambassador to
    Azerbaijan, Matthew Bryza, because he suspected the career diplomat
    had close personal ties to Mr. Aliyev and other Azerbaijani
    powerbrokers. Mr. Obama bypassed the Senate and named Mr. Bryza in a
    one-year recess appointment, which expired in January.



    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jun/14/embassy-row-diplomatic-dispute-reopened/

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