WASHINGTON, DC – The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is calling on the Biden Administration to condemn Azerbaijan’s aggression, halt all U.S. military aid to Baku, and enforce sanctions against Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and other senior members of his regime as part of an overall reset of U.S. policy towards Armenia, Artsakh and the broader Caucasus region.
“Left unchecked, Azerbaijan and our NATO ‘ally’ Turkey will continue to deploy the full force of their combined military capabilities to complete the Armenian Genocide, the planned, systematic destruction of the world’s first Christian nation – a proud country of just three million people struggling to survive on the frontier of world freedom,” stated ANCA Chairman Raffi Hamparian, in a December 14, 2021, letter to President Biden, shared with Senate and House Committees on Foreign Relations, Armed Services, and Appropriations.
Hamparian’s correspondence to the White House sets forth that the first step in a U.S. – Caucasus policy reset is ending the Administration’s “patently false ‘both-sides’ narrative by clearly and consistently calling out Azerbaijan as the belligerent that launched the September 2020 attack on Artsakh.” Hamparian went on to note the key criteria for a policy reset on Armenia and Artsakh, including:
— withdrawing the waiver of Section 907 restrictions on U.S. aid to Azerbaijan
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— providing $100 million in direct aid to assist the over 100,000 Artsakh Armenians ethnically cleansed by Azerbaijan
— imposing Global Magnitsky sanctions on Azerbaijani leaders for war crimes committed during the 2020 Artsakh and Armenia attacks
— condemning Azerbaijan’s illegal detention of Armenian POWs
— conducting an investigation of Turkey’s hiring of Syrian mercenaries and use of illegal munitions against Artsakh and Armenia civilians.
— Denouncing Turkey’s material military backing of Azerbaijan’s ethnic-cleansing of Artsakh and ongoing Azerbaijani aggression against Armenia
— Actively countering Turkey’s attempts to arm-twist Armenia into “normalizing” bilateral ties at the expense of Artsakh’s independence or justice for the Armenian Genocide.
