No U.S. envoy in Ankara for at least 7 weeks

Turkey will remain without a US ambassador for at least another seven weeks because of peculiarities in the rules under which the US political system works. The last US ambassador to Ankara, James Jeffrey, has been appointed to Baghdad, and his planned successor Frank Ricciardone still has not won confirmation by the Senate, Congress' upper chamber.

Amid worsening U.S.-Turkish relations, mainly over rifts from Iran and Israel, the United States has not had an ambassador here since late July, and this situation will remain for at least another seven weeks. The last stumbling block is in the peculiarities in the rules under which the U.S. Congress works.

The last U.S. ambassador to Ankara, James Jeffrey, has been appointed to Baghdad, but his planned successor Frank Ricciardone still has not won confirmation by the Senate, Congress' upper chamber. Under U.S. law, all senior administration officials, including ambassadors, have to be approved by the Senate.

Here is how Ricciardone's ordeal has developed in recent months and will likely evolve in the near future:

President Barack Obama on July 1 nominated Ricciardone, a former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and the Philippines. Ricciardone won the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's backing on July 22. But on the last day before the Senate went to a summer recess in August, influential Republican Sen. Sam Brownback from Kansas formally put a hold on his nomination, saying: "I am not convinced Ambassador Ricciardone is the right ambassador for Turkey at this time - despite his extensive diplomatic experience."

Brownback's move effectively prevented a full Senate vote on Ricciardone. The senator last week met with Obama's ambassadorial nominee for Ankara, but after that Brownback still kept his hold on Ricciardone.

And the U.S. Senate effectively adjourned Thursday, in preparation for mid-term congressional elections on Nov. 2. Thirty-seven Senate seats and the whole of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, Congress' lower chamber, are up for grabs in the elections.

Enter an archaic and rarely used technique known as “a recess appointment,” a vestige of the 19th century that allows presidents to take certain actions unilaterally, on the presumption that calling the legislature into session would takes weeks. As it did in the era of horses. The rule gives U.S. presidents the right to install nominees when the Senate is out of Washington. In the pre-election recess, insiders were suggesting that Obama might use the power to appoint Ricciardone as ambassador to Ankara for two years – the maximum term of such unilateral assignments. But he has been robbed of using this clout.

The top Democratic and Republican senators agreed Thursday to avoid Obama's potential "recess appointments." In a rarely seen deal, they decided that the Senate would not officially go to a pre-election recess.

Under the formula, the Senate will hold pro forma sessions twice a week – where the presiding officer will gavel in and gavel out for a virtually empty chamber so that it will technically stay in session, even though legislative business will not occur until after the Nov. 2 elections. With the Senate technically staying in session, Obama will not be able to use his temporary constitutional authority to bypass the Senate and install political appointees during extended recesses.

Under these circumstances, Ricciardone at best can be confirmed in the Senate's "lame duck sessions" beginning in mid-November, under the condition that Brownback lifts his veto on him.

A lame duck session of Congress is one that takes place after an election has been held, but before the current Congress has reached the end of its constitutional term. Under contemporary conditions, any meeting of Congress that occurs between a congressional election in November and the following Jan. 3 – when the new Congress' term begins – is a lame duck session. The significant characteristic of a lame duck session is that its participants are the sitting members of the existing Congress, not those who will be entitled to sit in the new Congress.

If Brownback lifts his hold on Ricciardone and if the Senate, in its lame duck sessions scheduled to begin Nov. 15, moves to confirm Ricciardone, the latter can take up his job in Ankara. But that makes at least seven weeks from today.

And under worse conditions – including Brownsback's probable move not to lift his veto or the lame duck Senate not voting on Ricciardone – the post of ambassador to Ankara will remain vacant at least until late January or February.

Under such conditions, since the Democrat-Republican deal will keep the Senate technically at work, Ricciardone's nomination will stay alive and go onto the agenda of the next Senate early in the new year. But this time it will not be clear if Obama will insist on Ricciardone's nomination or nominate someone else for Ankara, just to restart the nomination process from scratch.

"Keeping the post of the U.S. ambassador in Ankara vacant for many months at a time when there are major political differences between Turkey and the United States will make dialogue more difficult," said Bulent Aliriza, head of Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.


/Hurriyet Daily News/