U.S. Senators have
called on the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the current President of the U.N. Security Council, to exert pressure on Azerbaijan and ‘take a strong stance’ at the forthcoming U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We write to urge you to take a strong stance at today’s U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh to address the humanitarian crisis,” Senator Robert Menendez, the Chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and Senator Alex Padilla said in a letter addressed to Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
Describing the ongoing situation resulting from the Azeri blockade, the Senators added that “Azerbaijan’s actions are nothing short of an attempt of ethnic cleansing of the Armenian community that has lived there for centuries.”
The American lawmakers recalled that former chief prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has warned that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that a Genocide is being committed."
“We are encouraged that the United States supported the call for convening the meeting. In your capacity as the President of the U.N. Security Council for August 2023, we ask that you work with all UNSC members to pressure the Azerbaijani government to lift the blockade and prevent what the evidence suggests is a coordinated effort to ethnically cleanse the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Specifically, we urge you to introduce a resolution calling for an immediate end of the blockade and unfettered humanitarian access to the region,” the Senators added.
