Epress.am News from Armenia
President Barack Obama’s pick for the next US ambassador to Azerbaijan has cleared a key congressional hurdle with approval from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Senators on the committee voted 17-to-2 on September 21 to approve Matthew Bryza as the top US diplomat in Baku, a position that has been vacant for more than a year, Radio Liberty reports.
His nomination must now be confirmed by the US Senate, which approves the majority of nominations that have cleared the committee.
But while Bryza’s nomination may be nearing the finish line, his path has been far from smooth.
The career diplomat was one of the most visible US officials in the Caucasus region under President George W. Bush, as deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
He was also the US co-chair of the Minsk Group, which seeks to broker a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
But Bryza’s nomination, which was announced in late May, provoked an immediate and angry response from Armenian Diaspora groups and some Armenian officials, who accuse Bryza of pro-Azerbaijan bias.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had originally scheduled a vote on Bryza for August 3, but it was postponed at the request of Senator Barbara Boxer (Democrat-California) and pushed back until after Congress’s summer recess.
Boxer, who represents California, the US state with the largest Armenian-American constituency, was one of two senators who voted against Bryza today. Her fellow Democratic senator from New Jersey, Robert Menendez, also voted “no.”
At today’s vote, Boxer said she wasn’t confident that Bryza would deliver those messages when it comes to confronting the government of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev.
“Mr. Bryza has demonstrated a pattern of unwillingness to speak out forcefully in the face of continued Azerbaijani aggression toward Nagorno-Karabakh,” she told the committee. “My ‘no’ vote today is a reflection of my belief that… we desperately need someone who unequivocally believes that we must stand up to threats of violence, wherever they come from, as we continue down the tough road to peace.”
Bryza has received consistent support from Republican backers, however, including the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s top minority member, Richard Lugar (Republican-Indiana), who has praised the diplomat for “[advancing] United States interests by taking a balanced approach.”