Senator Menendez quests to defer consideration of U.S. Ambassador to Armenia nominee John Heffern

PanARMENIAN.Net - 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.

Senator Menendez told the Armenian Assembly jf America that he needed more time to review the responses received from Heffern, and remains troubled by the Administration's wordsmithing regarding U.S. affirmation and recognition of the Armenian Genocide. With the "holdover" in place, a vote on Heffern's candidacy will be delayed until the next Senate Foreign Relations Committee business meeting, which according to sources, may likely be in September.

“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.”

Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nominee of John A. Heffern as an Ambassador to Republic of Armenia took place July 13.

“The Administration supports Armenia’s courageous steps to begin a process with Turkey to address their history, and to find a way to move forward together in a shared future of security and prosperity. Through the Minsk Process, the U.S. supports Armenia and Azerbaijan as they work toward a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” said the Ambassador-Designate adding that the President has urged Turkey and Armenia to work through their painfulhistory to achieve a full, frank, and just acknowledgement of the facts. Also, he has publicly called the massacre of 1.5 million Armenians at this time one of the worst atrocities of the 20th the century.

“If confirmed, I will do my best to fulfill the President’s vision. There is still a lot to do. And, I would continue the efforts of my most able predecessor, Ambassador Masha Yovanovitch,” Heffern said.

In turn, 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 sign 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.