THE WHITE HOUSE

                       Office of the Press Secretary 
                    (Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts)
______________________________________________________________________ 
For Immediate Release                                September 2, 1997 

                  PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES B. LYNN PASCOE 
              WITH RANK OF AMBASSADOR AS SPECIAL NEGOTIATOR 
                           FOR NAGORNO-KARABAKH

President Clinton today announced his intent to nominate B. Lynn Pascoe, a Career Member of the Senior Foreign service, for the rank of Ambassador during his tenure of service as Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mr. B. Lynn Pascoe, of Virginia, is the American Co-Chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) Minsk Group seeking to resolve the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nargorno-Karabakh. He is currently Special Coordinator for Regional Affairs in the State Department's office dealing with the Newly Independent States. Before assuming his current position, Mr. Pascoe served as a Senior Advisor in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs and at the United States Mission to the United Nations. From 1993 to 1996, Mr. Pascoe was the Director of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) in Taipei, Taiwan, the organization mandated by U.S. law to carry out the cultural, commercial, and other relations between the people of the United States and the people of Taiwan, a position equivalent to a chief of mission. Prior to his service in Taipei, Mr. Pascoe was the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the East Asian and Pacific Bureau of the Department of State.

During his three decades in the U.S. Foreign Service, he has also served as the Deputy Chief of Mission of the American Embassy in Beijing, Deputy Executive Secretary of the Department of State, and Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary. He has held responsible positions on both the Soviet and China desks and has been posted in Moscow, Beijing, Hong Kong and Bangkok as well as Taipei. Mr. Pascoe entered the Foreign Service in 1967. He received a B.A. degree from the University of Kansas and an M.A. from Columbia University. He also studied Chinese at the Stanford Center in Taipei, and attended the U.S. National War College and the State Department's Senior Seminar.

The Special Negotiator for Nagorno-Karabakh is the principal USG official responsible for U.S. policy toward, and involvement with, the conflicts in the former Soviet Union. The incumbent will engage in systematic consultations with the Russian Government and with European allies and their partners to garner their support.

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