News - US must end all military and security funding to Azerbaijan, Congress members say

Sixty-six members of the US Congress have called on the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations to allocate $200 million to forcibly displaced Armenian refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh, increase US military aid to Armenia, stop all military and security funding to Azerbaijan, and consider the matter of sanctions against Azerbaijani war criminals. The respective letter was sent to Mario Diaz-Balart Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs, and Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Also in the letter, the aforesaid Congress members called to allocate $20 million to Armenia in military funding, $10 million for military education and training abroad, $10 million for legal reforms, and $10 million for democratic reforms. The authors of the letter expressed particular concern about the intentions of the Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev regime to provoke a new war against Armenia. The Congress members said that Aliyev has repeatedly proven with his genocidal actions that he is not a fair player in the peace process in the region, and therefore the US must not provide any security assistance to his regime. Furthermore, these American lawmakers condemned the US State Department and international organizations for not holding the Azerbaijani government accountable for its human rights violations. It is long past time for the United States to seriously consider imposing sanctions so that Azerbaijani officials are held accountable for all violations of international law, the letter says, in part.