THE FOLLOWING IS BEING ISSUED BY THE AZERBAIJANI-AMERICAN
COUNCIL
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ahead of
next week's elections, collusion of some ethnic lobbies with
electoral politics continues to hurt our national interests. Case
in point is the Armenian-American special interest groups' attempt
to turn U.S. foreign policy against Azerbaijan and in favor of Armenia.
In 1991-1994, the two post-Soviet nations fought a war over the
Nagorno-Karabakh region, which ended with Armenia's occupation of the fifth of
Azerbaijan and an expulsion of
over 800,000 Azerbaijanis. Meeting with the Armenian-American
constituents last month, Congressmen Brad
Sherman (D-CA) and Howard
Berman (D-CA) raced each other on damaging U.S.-Azerbaijani
relations. Mr. Berman even called on Secretary Clinton "to suspend
Azerbaijan from all future
NATO-sponsored activities."
Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Schiff
(D-CA) has been striving to ensure that the U.S. aid to the victims
of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is directed only to ethnic Armenians
and away from Azerbaijani refugees. Accommodating the same special
interest, in 2010-2011, Senators Robert
Menendez (D-NJ) and Barbara
Boxer (D-CA) obstructed the confirmation of Matthew Bryza as the Ambassador to Azerbaijan... by arguing that his wife is
Turkish.
Since attaining independence in 1991, Azerbaijan has been a steadfast partner of
the United States. After 9/11, the
country promptly opened its airspace and contributed forces
for the U.S. missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and remains the main over-flight and
landing route for our forces in Afghanistan. Sharing its longest border with
Iran, Azerbaijan has thwarted a number of terrorist
plots against Americans, such as the March
2012 apprehension of 22 suspects trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards to attack U.S. and
Israeli embassies. Moreover, developed by Western companies,
Azerbaijani oil and gas safeguard Europe's energy security.
In contrast, Armenia is a
member of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty and hosts
Russia's only military base in the
South Caucasus. While receiving over $2
billion in U.S. assistance since 1992, Armenia's government delivered 1000 RPG-22M
rockets and 260 PKM machine guns to Iran in 2003. According to the U.S. State
Department cables, these weapons were used in the 2008 killing of a
U.S. serviceman, Sgt Matthew
Straughter, by the Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
These facts highlight the necessity of decoupling such
ethnocentric lobbying from electoral politics to protect national
interests and to save taxpayer dollars from funding America's
adversaries. The upcoming elections are an opportunity to face that
challenge.
SOURCE Azerbaijani-American Council