WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 the U.S. House of Representatives passed an Omnibus Appropriations Bill on Wednesday, wrapping up Fiscal Year 2022 spending that calls for \u201cnot less than\u201d $45 million for Armenia and $2 million for humanitarian demining in Artsakh, reported the Armenian Assembly of America .<\/p>\n
The measure also requires \u201cthat prior to any initial obligation of funds appropriated under title IV of the Act for assistance for Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Secretary of State shall consult with the Committees on Appropriations on the proposed uses of such funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
The inclusion of aid comes on the heels of a letter spearheaded by Congressional Armenian Caucus Vice-Chair Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) along with Armenian Caucus Co-Chairs Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), and Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), as well as another letter by Caucus Members Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jim Costa (D-CA), who urged the leadership of the House and Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs to include an additional $50 million in humanitarian aid to Artsakh.<\/p>\n
The bill itself includes language on Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, and also requires a report on the likelihood of military action against Artsakh \u201cnot later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.\u201d<\/p>\n
There has been widespread reporting of the Aliyev regime\u2019s continued violations of the November 2020 ceasefire terms, including the killing of Armenians in cross-border shootings. This week alone, Azeri forces blocked repair of damaged main gas supply to Nagorno Karabakh amid reports that they cut the pipeline themselves, under cover of war in Ukraine. Just yesterday, an Armenian soldier was killed, and another wounded, in a ceasefire violation on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan\u2019s Nakhichevan enclave. In addition, Artsakh officials have reported today that Azerbaijan\u2019s army is \u201cactively\u201d using high-caliber mortars and automatic weapons to target Artsakh\u2019s rural communities forcing farmers to suspend \u201call types of agricultural work.\u201d Moreover, for the last two days and counting, the people of Artsakh have been deprived of a vital gas supply pipeline while the Azeri military refuses access to determine the cause or fix the damage. Meanwhile, Artsakh recently sent over 14 tons of humanitarian aid to help aid the Ukrainian people.<\/p>\n
Last week, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a report regarding Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act by the Government Accounting Office<\/a> (GAO) which found that, according to Chairman Menendez, \u201cthe State Department failed to comply with reporting requirements for reviewing U.S. assistance to the Government of Azerbaijan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2013 the U.S. House of Representatives passed an Omnibus Appropriations Bill on Wednesday,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"post_badge":[],"class_list":["post-2306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-press-releases"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",679,430,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1-250x158.jpg",250,158,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",640,405,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1-400x253.jpg",400,253,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",679,430,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",679,430,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",679,430,false],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",679,430,false],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg",679,430,false],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1-400x250.jpg",400,250,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1-45x45.jpg",45,45,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"ArmenianCouncil","author_link":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/author\/armeniancouncil\/"},"category_info":"News<\/a> Press Releases<\/a>","tag_info":"Press Releases","comment_count":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/House-of-Reps-679x430-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2306"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2309,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2306\/revisions\/2309"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2306"},{"taxonomy":"post_badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_badge?post=2306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}