Congress should restore funds for Azerbaijan aid
As an Azerbaijani-American who is concerned about the Caucasus region, I find it unacceptable that on June 17, the House Appropriations Subcommittee ignored and changed President Obama\'s FY2010 request.
His request was based on real needs assessments by the State Department and Pentagon, whilst the subcommittee has become a tool of special interests and lobbyists.
Obama wanted to: 1) increase military funding for Azerbaijan, 2) keep economic aid to Armenia lower than what it has been disproportionally receiving for years, especially since that nation already receives $236 million other funds whilst recently holding exceptionally poor elections, and 3) not to give any direct aid to the Armenia-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) region of Azerbaijan.
It is run by a military junta that occupied Azerbaijan, committed ethnic cleansing and should not be rewarded with our tax dollars.
It should be stressed that direct U.S. assistance to the NK region creates and will further exacerbate the concern in allied Azerbaijan and especially among the Azerbaijani-Americans and their friends. The NK region, occupied by Armenia in the early 1990s (which displaced up to 50,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis from there, along with another 750,000 Azeris from its vicinity), is recognized by the United States, as well as the United Nations and all others, as an integral part of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan NK conflict is the most critical issue for Azerbaijan and regional stability, and Azerbaijan being a strategic ally of the United States, with peacekeeping troops serving in Afghanistan, makes me sincerely hope and believe that my Congress will pay due attention to the concerns of its own national interest, to its strategic ally and to its citizens and voters, the Azeri-Americans and their friends.
Thus, it should provide need-based amounts of humanitarian, economic and especially military assistance.
Tarlan Ahmadov, Portland
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