"Arizona supports territorial integrity of Azerbaijan"

The US Spanish-language newspaper Eurasia Hoy has issued an article headlined “Arizona supports territorial integrity of Azerbaijan”.

The article is dedicated to a resolution that the US state of Arizona passed on Azerbaijan at the Senate and House of Representatives on January 30.

The resolution says the USA and the state of Arizona support territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan and the international community does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent entity.

The author writes that the OSEC Minsk group, dealing with settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has a mission to find a solution to the problem in conformity with principles of international law, on the basis of relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, as well as documents adopted by the OSCE.

The article notes that the UN Security Council adopted resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 on the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict.

It notes the legislators express support for "the reinvigoration of United States efforts aimed at a swift and just political settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict."

The author says the conflict began in 1988, when Armenians raised a territorial claim against Azerbaijan. Armenia did not fulfill any resolution of the Security Council demanding unconditional withdrawal from occupied territories.

The newspaper quotes the document, saying “Azerbaijan has succeeded in rebuilding its economy, tripling its gross domestic product (GDP) and becoming a rapidly developing member of the global economy after restoring its independence in early 1990s. Accounting for 80% of the GDP of the South Caucasus region, the Republic of Azerbaijan is the United States' biggest trade partner in the South Caucasus.”

Calling Azerbaijan “a strategic partner of the U.S. in the strategically important South Caucasus region”, the resolution stresses that “over the past twenty years, the U.S. and Azerbaijan expanded their partnership and developed multifaceted cooperation on issues ranging from energy security, to the fight against international terrorism, to efforts against drug and human trafficking, to nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

The resolution further says that “Azerbaijan initiated a number of strategically important trans-regional energy and transportation projects like the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which contribute to the prosperity of both Azerbaijan and some of our regional allies, including Turkey and Georgia.”

This is the second resolution on Azerbaijan by the Arizona State Legislature. The first resolution was adopted in May 2013 and covered the strategic partnership between the U.S. and Azerbaijan.


/AzerTAc/