Washington, 5 November 1997 (RFE/RL) - The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee has endorsed President Bill Clinton's choices for new U.S. ambassadors to Azerbaijan, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
They were among 50 new ambassadors and other diplomatic representatives approved unanimously by the panel last night during its last session of the year. All must be confirmed by the full Senate before taking office. However, endorsement by the committee all but assures their confirmation.
The committee's action clears a logjam of accumulated diplomatic nominations and brings to 119 the number of Clinton administration nominees approved by the panel this year.
The new ambassadors and their assignments are: Stanley Escudero, Azerbaijan; William Montgomery, Croatia; Peter Tufo, Hungary; Daniel Fried, Poland; James Rosapepe, Romania; Steven Pifer, Ukraine, and Joseph Presel, Uzbekistan.
In addition, the panel approved the nominations of Lynn Pascoe to be the special State Department negotiator for the talks on settling the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and of David Johnson to be the head of the U.S. delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.