[lg policy] Armenian Diaspora, Politicians Protest Bryza ’s Diplomatic Nomination as Baku Envoy

Fri Jun 4 13:28:38 UTC 2010

Armenian Diaspora, Politicians Protest Bryza’s Diplomatic Nomination
as Baku Envoy

June 1, 2010 - 1:27pm, by Marianna Grigoryan
Armenia US US Foreign Policy

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.”

http://www.eurasianet.org/node/61198
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