InternationalWashington briefing: State Department’s new Eurasia manager confirmed
Published: Friday May 22, 2009
Philip Gordon.
Washington - Philip Gordon, the Obama administration's nominee for assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia, was confirmed by the Senate on May 14, the Foreign Policy magazine blog The Cable reported the following morning. According to earlier reports, Mr. Gordon's nomination was held up for over a month by Sen. John Ensign (R.-Nev.) because of Mr. Gordon's opposition to U.S. affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.
According to an anonymous source cited by Greek News on May 13, Mr. Ensign decided to drop his hold, first introduced in early April, after Armenia announced it had agreed to a normalization process with Turkey in a joint April 22 statement.
Meanwhile, in response to an inquiry from Sen. Robert Menendez (D.-N.J.) as part of the confirmation process, Mr. Gordon's previous employer the Brookings Institution reported receiving more than $710,000 in funding from Turkish corporate entities since 2006. Most of the money went toward Brookings' Turkey program, run by former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Mark Parris.
In responses to Mr. Menendez's written questions, also published by Greek News, Mr. Gordon studiously avoided the term genocide, while "mourning" the deaths of 1.5 million Ottoman Armenians, recalled his support for Turkey "to come to terms with its history" and improve relations with Armenia, "if Armenia shows a real commitment to a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict."
Mr. Gordon's responses indicated no change to U.S. policy of restricted engagement with authorities of Nagorno-Karabakh and continued U.S. humanitarian aid to its residents.
