Senator Blocks Vote On New U.S. Envoy To Armenia

A U.S. senator put a hold Tuesday on the nomination of Richard Hoagland to be ambassador to Armenia to protest the Bush administration's refusal to classify the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey as genocide. Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 13-5 to send Hoagland's nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Until Democratic Senator Robert Menendez lifts his hold, however, the Senate cannot vote on Hoagland's nomination. Under Senate rules, any senator can block nominations or legislation. Menendez said all Americans must recognize the atrocities committed between 1915 to 1923 in Armenia, during the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, amounted to genocide. The Bush administration and Turkey, successor to the Ottoman state, admit many Armenians died but reject the genocide classification.