US Azerbaijani Diaspora addresses several questions to Secretary Clinton who will speak at the House Foreign Affairs Committee

The Azerbaijani Diaspora in the US has addressed three questions to the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who will speak on March 1st at the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) on the subject of "Assessing U.S. Foreign Policy Priorities and Needs Amidst Economic Challenges", APA’s Washington DC correspondent reports.

Secretary Clinton also will testify before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations at open hearing on “National Security & Foreign Policy Priorities in The FY2012 International Affairs Budget”.

Diaspora calls on the US Administration to take into consideration the widely reported Armenia’s arms transfer to Iran, which found their way to Iraqi insurgents and used against the US troops serving in Iraq.

“Under pressure from the Armenian special interest since 1998, the Congress has been allocating direct aid to the Armenia-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, leading to protests and denunciations from Baku of this practice. No other country in the world provides aid to the Armenia-occupied NK”, reminds the Azerbaijani Diaspora. “Everyone in the world supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani-Americans are strongly opposed to this direct aid which helps Armenia sustain its illegal military occupation of Azerbaijan”.

The question is what can be done to stop this irritation of an important US ally such as Azerbaijan, especially in the current economic climate when we can’t afford to spend money helping military junta’s such as Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians as much as we can’t do lose allies? “Specifically, can USAID disburse the already allocated money to the Azerbaijani displaced from the NK region?” asks the Diaspora.

The next question to the Secretary from the Azeri Diaspora is why were not sanctions applied against Armenia after she transferred weapons to Iran which resulted in the killing of one U.S. serviceman (Matthew Straughter) and wounding of 3 more American soldiers?

Therefore, Azerbaijani-Americans urge the US government to absolutely zero direct aid to the Armenia-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) region of Azerbaijan and reduce all aid to Armenia, which despite getting billions in US aid has been doing worse and worse every year in every aspect, from democracy and human rights to compliance with international and US laws.

Also, the Diaspora requires to sustain current and past Administration’s aid requests for FMF, IMET, economic, technical, humanitarian and democracy aid to Azerbaijan; as well as remove the discriminatory Section 907 of Freedom Support Act of 1992.


/APA/