Azernews.Az

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Pro-Armenian Senator Barbara Boxer has vetoed tabling in the US Senate the appointment of Matthew Bryza as the next US ambassador to Azerbaijan, following the approval of his nomination by a Senate panel on Tuesday, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) said.

The decision to approve Bryza, the former US mediator on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, was passed by the Foreign Relations Committee after a heated debate. His nomination is now to be endorsed by the full Senate.

Under US Constitution, if an ambassador’s candidacy does not pass the Senate committee, the president is to nominate another candidate to the post.

ANCA executive director, Aram Hamparian, claimed that Bryza’s appointment would be "a betrayal" of the United States’ interests in Azerbaijan and threaten democracy and stability in the Caucasus region.

"I thank [Senators] Robert Menendez and Barbara Boxer, who voted against the nomination, for their firm stance on the issue. Matthew Bryza is the wrong diplomat being nominated at the wrong time, and this would be a wrong appointment," Hamparian alleged.

Back in 2006, Menendez exercised his veto power to block the appointment of Richard Hoagland as the US ambassador to Armenia after President Bush’s nominee did not term the 1915 developments in Ottoman Turkey as the alleged genocide of Armenians in his Senate address.

Boxer, who will stand in the November elections to the Senate in California, may not be able to gain enough votes and is therefore trying to rally support of ethnic Armenian voters by accusing Bryza of favoring Turkey and Azerbaijan, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The post of US ambassador to Azerbaijan 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 has a near-22-year-long diplomatic career that put him at the center of the South Caucasus’ strategic issues. 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 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.