Genocide Issue Blocks Naming Of U.S. Ambassador To Armenia
September 13, 2006
Armenians march through Yerevan in 2005 to mark the 90th anniversary of the slaughter start of mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire (ITAR-TASS)
September 13, 2006 -- A U.S. senator has blocked a vote on the nomination of Richard Hoagland to be the new U.S. ambassador to Armenia in protest of the Bush administration's refusal to classify as genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in the closing years of the Ottoman Empire.
Until Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from the state of New Jersey, lifts his hold, Hoagland's nomination cannot be voted on by the full U.S. Senate.
The Bush administration and Turkey, successor to the Ottoman state, admit many Armenians died but reject use of the term "genocide."
(AP)