U.S. Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Representatives Jim Costa (D-CA), and Brad Sherman (D-CA) were joined by a bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers in calling on the Biden Administration to take immediate measures to prevent an Azerbaijani invasion of Armenia.
“The opportunity to prevent further aggression by Azerbaijani forces and an all-out war in the South Caucasus is running out,” stated the U.S. Representatives in an October 4th letter addressed to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power. “Signals from Aliyev indicate that his campaign of ethnic cleansing will not cease with his military attacks on Artsakh.”
The U.S. lawmakers offered four concrete ways the U.S. can deter Azerbaijani aggression, including:
— Imposing Global Magnitsky Act and other sanctions against Azerbaijan for “their role in the military attack on and dissolution of Artsakh and associated atrocities and human rights violations
— Enforcing Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, stopping military aid to Azerbaijan
— Providing security assistance to Armenia
— Placing international monitors and peacekeepers in Armenia to prevent an Azerbaijani invasion.
The legislator also called for expanded U.S. and international humanitarian aid for Armenian refugees forced out of Nagorno-Karabakh and efforts to secure the “unconditional release of and amnesty for captured Artsakh government officials and Armenian prisoners of war.”
Joining Representatives Pallone, Costa, and Sherman in co-signing the letter are Representatives: Tony Cardenas (D-CA), Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), James McGovern (D-MA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Haley Stevens (D-MI), and Dina Titus (D-NV).
The full text of the Congressional letter is available
here.
