Azernews.Az

BAKU – A US Senate panel approved Matthew Bryza’s appointment as the US ambassador to Azerbaijan on Tuesday.

The decision, passed by the Foreign Relations Committee, is now to be endorsed by the full Senate.

Senators Robert Menendez and Barbara Boxer vehemently opposed the nomination of the former US mediator on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the Committee hearing.

Boxer, a California Democrat known for her pro-Armenian stance, claimed in a statement that Bryza was not fit for the job due his close ties with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

VoA has quoted Boxer as saying that Bryza has avoided what she called "Azerbaijan’s aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh".

Menendez, a lawmaker representing the state of New Jersey, said he would not vote for Bryza, maintaining that he has failed to adequately respond to the alleged destruction of Armenian burials in Azerbaijan. Menendez also blamed the White House nominee for refusing to recognize the alleged World War I-era genocide of Armenians.

But Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Massachusetts Senator John Kerry backed Bryza’s candidacy. He said that Bryza has skillfully done his job while serving for the State Department and his extensive contacts in the region will help him during his service as the US ambassador in Baku.

The post has been vacant since July 2009. The Foreign Relations Committee has held numerous hearings on Bryza’s appointment. Earlier, in August, discussions on Bryza’s nomination were postponed due to the efforts of several senators led by Barbara Boxer.

Bryza, whose appointment to Baku has long been the source of considerable speculation, has a near-22-year-long diplomatic career that put him at the center of two of the South Caucasus’ most strategic issues: resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the introduction of non-Russia-related oil and gas pipelines from Baku to the Black Sea.

As deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2005 to 2009, Bryza coordinated US energy policy in the Black and Caspian Sea regions, and represented the U.S. on the OSCE’s Minsk Group talks on a resolution of Azerbaijan’s 22-year conflict with Armenia over the occupied region of Nagorno Karabakh.

Under US President Bill Clinton, he served as a deputy advisor on Caspian Sea energy diplomacy and worked on US government efforts to develop a network of oil and gas pipelines in the region.

The long absence of a US ambassador to Baku has been cited previously as a source of irritation for some Azerbaijani officials, who allegedly saw it as a slight of President Ilham Aliyev’s government amidst American promotion of a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement. With Bryza’s nomination in May, Washington sent a "positive signal" that it is ready to smooth over relations with Azerbaijan, analysts say.

Bryza, whose 2007 wedding to Turkish-born foreign policy analyst Zeyno Baran, was attended by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and several other Azerbaijani officials, is seen as a known entity for President Ilham Aliyev’s government.