WASHINGTON, DC – ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian issued the following statement regarding President Obama’s nomination of John Bass for U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to vote on the nominee on Tuesday, July 29th:

“The ANCA cannot support the nomination of John Bass to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, on the basis of his Senate testimony that compounds President Obama’s broken pledge to recognize the Armenian Genocide by retreating even further from the truth and tightening Turkey’s gag-rule on the U.S. government.”

“It is simply unacceptable – six years after President Obama pledged to recognize the Armenian Genocide, five years after Ankara walked away from the Turkey-Armenia Protocols, and less than a year away from the 100th anniversary of the start of this still unpunished crime – for a U.S. ambassadorial nominee to respond to direct Senate questioning on the Armenian Genocide with generic references to ‘shared history.’ Such euphemistic language seeks to downgrade a genocidal crime to a bilateral conflict by establishing moral parity between unrepentant perpetrators and those that they mercilessly preyed upon.”

“We oppose Turkey’s gag-rule and all who accept Ankara’s veto over America’s right to speak with moral clarity about the Armenian Genocide. The United States must be represented in Ankara on April 24th of 2015 by a clear and compelling voice for truth.”

Bass’ complete statement presented at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing is available at:
http://www.foreign.senate.gov/download/bass-testimony-7-15-14

#####