Marie L. Yovanovitch, the newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States to Armenia, arrived in Yerevan on Wednesday night, the Embassy’s Public Affairs Section reported.
She is due to assume her official duties after receiving credentials, it added.
Yovanovitch was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Ambassador to Armenia on August 1.
Prior to her new appointment, Yovanovitch was U.S. Ambassador to another former Soviet republic, Kyrgyzstan, from 2005 to 2008.
Ambassador Yovanovitch is a career member of the U.S. diplomatic service, with the personal rank of minister-counselor.
Prior to serving in the Kyrgyz Republic, she was the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from August 2004 to May 2005. From August 2001 to June 2004, she was the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Ukraine. From May 1998 to May 2000, she served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Russian Affairs. Her previous overseas assignments include Ottawa, Moscow, London, and Mogadishu. Ambassador Yovanovitch joined the Foreign Service in 1986.
Ambassador Yovanovitch is a graduate of Princeton University where she earned a BA in History and Russian Studies (1980). She has studied at the Pushkin Institute (1980) and received an MS from the National War College (2001).
Since the recall of Ambassador John Evans from his service in Yerevan, the duties of the U.S. ambassador in Armenia have been performed by charge d’affaires.
Evans was widely believed among American-Armenian circles to have been dismissed from his Yerevan job for publicly recognizing the Armenian genocide.
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey had twice held up the confirmation of another White House nominee, Richard Hoagland, through a Senate procedure, over the latter’s position of denying that the 1915 killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey constituted genocide.
In June, answering questions from a number of senators, including the current presidential candidate from the Democratic Party Barack Obama, Yovanovitch in particular used the Armenian term “Medz Yeghern” (or Great Calamity), but avoided using the word ‘genocide’ to refer to the World War I-era killings of Armenians.
She is due to assume her official duties after receiving credentials, it added.
Yovanovitch was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as Ambassador to Armenia on August 1.
Prior to her new appointment, Yovanovitch was U.S. Ambassador to another former Soviet republic, Kyrgyzstan, from 2005 to 2008.
Ambassador Yovanovitch is a career member of the U.S. diplomatic service, with the personal rank of minister-counselor.
Prior to serving in the Kyrgyz Republic, she was the Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from August 2004 to May 2005. From August 2001 to June 2004, she was the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Ukraine. From May 1998 to May 2000, she served as the Deputy Director of the Office of Russian Affairs. Her previous overseas assignments include Ottawa, Moscow, London, and Mogadishu. Ambassador Yovanovitch joined the Foreign Service in 1986.
Ambassador Yovanovitch is a graduate of Princeton University where she earned a BA in History and Russian Studies (1980). She has studied at the Pushkin Institute (1980) and received an MS from the National War College (2001).
Since the recall of Ambassador John Evans from his service in Yerevan, the duties of the U.S. ambassador in Armenia have been performed by charge d’affaires.
Evans was widely believed among American-Armenian circles to have been dismissed from his Yerevan job for publicly recognizing the Armenian genocide.
Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey had twice held up the confirmation of another White House nominee, Richard Hoagland, through a Senate procedure, over the latter’s position of denying that the 1915 killings of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey constituted genocide.
In June, answering questions from a number of senators, including the current presidential candidate from the Democratic Party Barack Obama, Yovanovitch in particular used the Armenian term “Medz Yeghern” (or Great Calamity), but avoided using the word ‘genocide’ to refer to the World War I-era killings of Armenians.