The State of Armenian/Azerbaijan Relations

The State of Armenian/Azerbaijan Relations -- (House of Representatives - April 01, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to address the decline in the state of affairs between Armenia and Azerbaijan brought about by Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and the members of his ministry. Including Namik Abbasov, Minister of National Security, through their encouragement of anti-Armenian propaganda that perpetrates anti-Armenian sentiments in the region.

Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, I was disheartened to learn of the brutal murder of an Armenian soldier by an Azeri soldier. Both were attending a NATO Partnership for Peace English-language course in Hungary. But I am doubly concerned by additional information that has recently been reported that the Azeri government is actually providing financial awards to individuals and organizations with the "best" propaganda works towards Armenians.

Recent accounts report that the Azerbaijani Ministry of National Security, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has awarded monetary prizes up to $2,000 for the "best" propaganda works targeting Armenians. The Azeri Ministry, for instance, presented a prize in the books category to the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences' Human Rights Institute for an "encyclopedia" entitled "Crimes Against Humanity Perpetrated by Armenian Terrorists and Bandit Formations," and the minister himself was honored for funding the publication of this book. The MNS also granted a top monetary prize to two anti-Armenian propaganda films.

I mention this because I believe it is a blatant effort by the Azeri government to undermine years of efforts undertaken to encourage a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict by me and other Members of this body as well as the Minsk group and the former U.S. administration.

Three years ago, I was encouraged by developments in the Nagorno Karabakh peace process with the announcement of the Key West Agreement, reached in April 2001 by President Kocharian and former Azeri President Aliyev. I was hopeful that this agreement would lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict and a stabilization of peace in the region. However, it was clear that any implementation of the Key West Agreement would have to wait until after the various legislative and presidential elections in the region including Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh, and Azerbaijan and when they were complete.

However, shortly after the last of these elections when President Ilham Aliyev was elected president of Azerbaijan, the Azeri government rejected all of the advancements made by the Minsk group, the former Azeri president and President Kocharian, and flatly rejected the Key West Agreement. Furthermore, President Ilham Aliyev has noted that any negotiations on resolving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict would need to start from scratch and any advancements towards peace made in the past were invalid.

So today instead of witnessing the implementation of the Key West Agreement or even a revival of negotiations of a peaceful solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, we are witnessing a regression towards the type of behavior on behalf of the Azeri government that encourages the violence we saw in the early to mid-1990s. I am discouraged by President Aliyev's blatant disregard for the autonomy of Nagorno Karabakh and his country's effort to undermine any chance at a peaceful resolution to this conflict. In fact, President Aliyev has recently said that he is not in any hurry to reach a peaceful resolution to the conflict and recently cancelled a meeting between Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian and the Azeri Foreign Minister planned by French, Russian, and U.S. mediators that was scheduled for this past Monday; and his excuse was that the agenda was not precise enough.

I am also discouraged by the current Bush administration in its failure to actively address a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. During a recent meeting between Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Armenian President Kocharian and Foreign Minister Oskanian, Armitage noted that "our Turkish friends have had their hands full recently," as an excuse that there would be little advancement towards opening the border between Armenia and Turkey or a move towards better relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that Armenia has been tremendously cooperative with the U.S. in its efforts in the war against terror and supportive of the stabilization of both Afghanistan and Iraq. However, rather than press President Aliyev toward considering peaceful resolutions of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the Bush administration perpetrates the conflict by failing to maintain military assistance parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan in its fiscal year 2005 budget request to Congress. In fact, the Bush administration proposed double the military assistance to Azerbaijan that it did to Armenia.

Today I would call on Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev to stop promoting propaganda against the Armenian people and make every effort to consider the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and begin an open dialogue with Armenian President Kocharian. I also call on President Bush and the administration to maintain parity in the region and recognize that pitting these nations against each other will move us further away from long sought-after peace that is much needed in this region.