WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s nominee for the ambassador to Cyprus acknowledged the continued presence of Turkish troops on the island during a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
In an exchange between Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and nominee Judith Gail Garber, Menendez pressed Garber on her stance towards the Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
“Do you acknowledge that there are Turkish troops in Northern Cyprus… yes or no?” Menendez asked.
“Yes, there are Turkish troops,” Garber said, after initially avoiding an answer to Menendez’s question.
Turkish troops invaded Cyprus in 1974 to overthrow a Greek-backed military coup, but only gained control of the island’s northern portion. The United Nations patrols the dividing line between the two parts of Cyprus. Turkey is the only country that recognizes the northern area as under its control.
“I think if we cannot accept a factual reality then we’re in trouble in terms of trying to figure out how do we move forward,” Menendez said.
Nominees for ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Azerbaijan and Iceland also testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Three of the nominees, with the exception of the pick for Iceland, come from backgrounds as career foreign service ministers.
“I think you’re all very qualified for these positions,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) said.
While the hearing’s questioning weaved from nominee to nominee, Kaine asked if any of the president’s picks knew how the Trump administration formulated a recent State Department rule that would deny visas to same-sex partners of foreign diplomats.
“Was that decision made purely in the State Department, or was it promoted by the White House or others in the administration?” Kaine asked.
None of the nominees said they had any knowledge of the rule’s creation.
The joint confirmation hearing took place amid a significant number of vacancies of key diplomatic positions across the State Department. The four nominees are part of 52 pending ambassadorships awaiting confirmation by the Senate. There are currently 72 unfilled U.S. ambassadorships.
Twenty nations, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Chile, South Africa and Turkey, have yet to have a nominee announced.
In remarks to the press on Wednesday, Sec. of State Mike Pompeo accused Democrats of stalling the confirmation of Trump’s diplomatic nominees.
Although 52 ambassador nominees await confirmation, 34 have only been announced in the last three months. Another 19 ambassador appointments have been referred out of committee and still await action by the Republican-controlled Senate.
“We don’t schedule the hearings, the Republicans do. We don’t schedule the floor, the Republicans do,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said in response to Pompeo’s claims. “If the administration’s concerned about getting their nominees through they should talk to the Senate Republicans about it.”