Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) and Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA) express their outrage over the vote in the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations markup session on June 30th 2010 to allocate $10 million in direct aid to “Nagorno-Karabakh” as a part of the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget.
This marks a $2-million increase from the FY2010 allocation to an illegal foreign entity and double the amount of FY2009 budget allocations for the same purpose.The said subcommittee also approved $44 million in aid to Armenia exceeding FY2011 budget amounts proposed by President Obama.
The move adopted under the influence of Armenian-American special interest groups in the U.S. Congress not only maintains but increases the amount of U.S. taxpayers' money allocated to an unrecognized illegal entity of “Nagorno-Karabakh” established by Armenia on the occupied territory of Azerbaijan. Such position assumed by the Congressional subcommittee not only contradicts the U.S. official position recognizing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, a UN-member state, but also undermines the U.S. reputation in the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process as a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group. Most importantly, at the time of troubled economic recovery and unprecedented increase in the unemployment rate that America is experiencing, the U.S. legislators are essentially rewarding the puppet regime responsible for the acts of mass ethnic cleansing and are prolonging the suffering of over 800,000 Azeri IDPs unable to return to their homes.
The decision to allocate a direct aid to the so-called “Nagorno-Karabakh” also impairs the U.S. foreign interests in a broader region. The U.S. policymakers consider Azerbaijan’s territory as an essential component of a successful war effort in Afghanistan. In past 9 years since the 9/11 attacks, Azerbaijan has fully supported the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo, providing overflight permissions, geographical advantage as well as sending troops in support of the U.S. operations. The amount of Azerbaijani effort in support of the U.S. security strategy in Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia by far exceeds that of Armenia, yet the U.S. lawmakers driven only by Armenian-American special interests again decided to maintain the military aid parity to Azerbaijan and Armenia.
In a recent letter addressed to Azerbaijani leadership in June, President Obama outlined the existence of serious issues in the U.S.-Azerbaijani relations and pledged his commitment to resolve them. These issues range from the U.S. efforts to separate the Armenian-Azerbaijani Karabakh peace process from the now-failed Turkish-Armenian rapprochement to the U.S. views of the state of democracy in Azerbaijan. An expected visit to Azerbaijan by the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, is aimed at addressing these issues. Yet it is inconceivable how yesterday’s vote in the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations is at all helpful to Administration’s overall strategy on Azerbaijan and the broader region.
On behalf of all concerned Americans, we call upon the U.S. lawmakers to stop sacrificing the national interests under the influence of over-zealous ethnic lobbies. The U.S. visions of democracy, liberty and opportunities for all are too precious for developing Azerbaijan and the volatile region of Caucasus to be undermined by the paid special interest groups misusing U.S. taxpayers’ money.
PROTEST AGAINST ALLOCATION OF FUNDS TO NAGORNO KARABAKH BY CONGRESS TO BE EXPRESSED DURING HILLARY CLINTON'S VISIT TO AZERBAIJAN
The protest against allocation of funds to Nagorno Karabakh by Congress will be expressed during U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Azerbaijan, Vice-Speaker of Azerbaijani Parliament Bahar Muradova said at the press conference held at the parliament, APA reported.
She noted that Nagorno Karabakh would be the main subject of discussions during Clinton’s visit: “Nagorno Karabakh is an integral part of Azerbaijan. Any assistance must be rendered through Azerbaijan”.
Muradova also said that there was no need to hold hearings at the parliament related to Nagorno Karabakh: “There is a unique position in Azerbaijan connected with Nagorno Karabakh. Hearings held in Armenia are connected with the pressure upon them. They do not move from dead point in this issue. If concrete position appears after the last statement due to Nagorno Karabakh and occurs need for its discussion, there may be held discussions at the parliament”.
Head of the Standing Committee on Human Rights of the Parliament Rabiyyat Aslanova used strict words while speaking about Clinton’s visit. She said that currently there were 225 POWs at Guantanamo jail and it impacted on US’ image negatively: “Azerbaijan has its own image in the world. Democracy is developing in this country, human rights are protected”.
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