Azernews.Az

WASHINGTON D. C. - US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley has said he was expecting the Senate to swiftly approve the White House nominations of the country’s ambassadors to Syria, Iraq, Azerbaijan and the Dominican Republic.

Crowley told a news briefing Wednesday that the State Department was looking forward to the diplomats’ embarking on their duties in these countries.

"We’ll see what happens with the Senate this week. We do expect to get a number of confirmations through the Senate tomorrow. We hope, including Jim Jeffrey, to be the ambassador in Baghdad, and Matt Bryza [as US envoy in Baku] as well. I certainly was not saying that – we have a number of deserving candidates who hope to get on the job as quickly as possible."

A US Senate panel on Tuesday postponed a hearing on President Barack Obama’s nomination of senior State Department official Matthew Bryza as the next US ambassador to Azerbaijan. The vote is due in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations following the August break, based on the proposal of Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer of California, who advocates for the interests of the US Armenian community.

Crowley noted that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern to the Committee chairman, Senator John Kerry Wednesday regarding ongoing holds of the government’s nominees as ambassadors. The State Department will work -- through continuous negotiations -- to achieve Senate approval of Matthew Bryza and other nominees "as quickly as possible", said Crowley.

The ambassador’s post has been vacant since July 2009, when former Ambassador Anne Derse’s tenure expired. In May President Obama nominated Bryza, who was one of the most visible US officials in the Caucasus region during the administration of former President George Bush, serving as deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. He was also the US co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, which seeks to broker a settlement to the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Analysts say the postponement of Bryza’s confirmation is directly linked to the Armenian lobby’s efforts. The experts termed the move as some senators’ yielding to Armenian pressure and, at the same time, suggested that this allows to clarify US stance toward Azerbaijan.