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Republicans block appointment of Obama's Turkey envoy
Ricciardone, nominated by President Barack Obama in July, had been expected to easily get a confirmation vote in the Senate after the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination on Aug. 3. But the Senate failed to vote on the matter at the Aug. 3 session, automatically postponing his appointment to September, when the Senate is due to return from recess.
A spokesperson for Republican Senator Sam Brownback said his office has placed a hold on the nomination, according to a report that appeared on Thursday at the Foreign Policy blog, The Cable, and the Republicans have no intention of allowing a vote on the nomination any time soon.
The report said Brownback will send a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, explaining in some detail the reasons why his party is reluctant to allow the diplomat's approval. Brownback's office did not provide details of the contents of the letter but many aides of Republican senators confirmed that solidarity with Brownback's concerns are prevailing and the administration will fall short in convincing the challengers to allow for an approving vote. If Brownback did release his hold, it's likely another one would surface soon after, said The Cable.
According to the report, Ricciardone's stance during his past assignments in Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq is behind the Republican opposition to his appointment to Turkey. Conservative circles in US question Ankara's loyalty to the Western club following its UN Security Council vote against Iran sanctions and harsh criticism against Israel, which came in the wake of a flotilla raid that left eight Turks and one Turkish-American dead.
To his critics, Ricciardone's record shows “a pattern of being too close to the governments he is interacting with and too tepid on the mission to push values such as democracy and human rights with tyrannical regimes,” the report said.
“He's just the wrong guy for this sensitive post at this time and the hope is that the administration will recognize that he won't be confirmed this year and will nominate someone better,” one senior Republican Party aide was quoted as saying by The Cable.
Closed-door session on Turkey
The State Department declined to comment on Thursday on the hold placed on the nomination of Ricciardone. But in a sign that it might be reevaluating its approach to Turkey, it held a closed-door meeting on Turkey, led by Clinton and Policy Planning chief Anne Marie Slaughter. Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon also attended the Thursday meeting.
"The ultimate aim of [the meeting] is to assess in a free, think-tank sort of way, are we moving in the right direction, are there other areas we can address?" a State Department official told The Cable, explaining that this is one of multiple meetings being held to come up with "out-of-the-box thinking to try to assess where we need to go."
In Ankara, however, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu appeared to welcome the meeting, saying it shows how Turkey-US relations were important. "We have such meetings at our Foreign Ministry as well. We see this as a natural outcome of our ties," he told reporters during a joint press conference with his Mexican counterpart, Patricia Espinosa.
“This is a long-scheduled meeting. We do these all the time,” Mark Toner, Acting Deputy Spokesperson at the State Department said of the meeting at a daily press briefing on Thursday. “They're kind of deep policy dives on important policy issues, of which clearly, Turkey is one. And it's just a chance for a, really, in-house discussion of a given issue.”
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