Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-12) led a bipartisan group of 54 U.S. Representatives in urging Secretary Blinken and the Biden Administration to stop all military assistance to Azerbaijan and urged a stronger U.S. response to Azerbaijan\u2019s ongoing blockade and aggression against Artsakh\u2019s 120,000 indigenous Armenian Christian population.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Representatives urged the Biden Administration to cut all military assistance to Azerbaijan by enforcing Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the context of this ongoing blockade and President Aliyev\u2019s continuing threats, extending the Presidential waiver of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act would send a dangerous message to Azerbaijan\u2019s government \u2013 that there will be no repercussions for its attempts to impose its will on the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh by intimidation, starvation and deadly force,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0wrote the lawmakers.<\/p>\n The Biden Administration is currently deciding whether to reauthorize of the Presidential waiver of Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act. Enacted in 1992, the law establishes statutory restrictions on US assistance to the Government of Azerbaijan \u201cuntil the President determines, and so reports to the Congress, that the Government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.\u201d Congress included a Section 907 waiver in the FY2002 Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act.<\/p>\n The Congressional letter also expressed \u201cdismay\u201d at the State Department\u2019s reticence to forcefully reject President Aliyev\u2019s recent threats against the Artsakh\u2019s authorities. \u201cPresident Aliyev\u2019s May 28 threat is an affront to our democratic and humanitarian values, and is even more shocking coming from a nation that receives generous U.S. military assistance,\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0wrote the lawmakers.<\/p>\n We thank Congresswoman Lee in leading a bi-partisan group of congressional members who are insisting that the US Administration do more on reopening the Lachin corridor,\u201d stated Armenian Council of America Board Chairman Sevak Khatchadorian. \u201cSeeing the Azerbaijani dictatorship create a humanitarian crisis in the region, with the intent of ethnic cleansing, the Administration must cease all military and security assistance to Azerbaijan, enforce section 907, and sanction Azeri regime officials responsible for human rights violations committed against Armenians in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n To read the full letter, click\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n As a grassroots organization, ACA is dedicated to working with all political leaders, offering Armenian related news, analysis and resources for policymakers, media, students and activists, advocating issues important to Armenian Americans. The ACA also aims to strengthen U.S. \u2013 Armenia and U.S. \u2013 Artsakh ties, the development of programs promoting sustainable economic growth and good governance in Armenia, while promoting the values and responsibilities of global citizenship.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Congresswoman Barbara Lee (CA-12) led a bipartisan group of 54 U.S. Representatives in urging Secretary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3117","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\/2023\/06\/US-Congress.jpg",1280,771,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-250x151.jpg",250,151,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-768x463.jpg",640,386,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-400x241.jpg",400,241,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress.jpg",1280,771,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress.jpg",1280,771,false],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-1115x715.jpg",1115,715,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-800x500.jpg",800,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-1024x617.jpg",1024,617,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-540x340.jpg",540,340,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-400x250.jpg",400,250,true],"rpwe-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/US-Congress-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\/2023\/06\/US-Congress.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117","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=3117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3119,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3117\/revisions\/3119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.armeniancouncil.org\/ACA\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}