ANCA Congressional Testimony calls for $200mln aid for Artsakh  refugees; sanctions for Azerbaijani war crimes

ArmInfo.The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) called on key Senate Committees to 

pressure the Biden Administration to cut all military aid and sanction Azerbaijan's genocidal leaders while allocating $200 million in U.S. assistance to survivors of the Artsakh Genocide.

In testimony submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and 

Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, ANCA Government 

Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan explained that in the wake of 

Azerbaijan's 2023 genocidal assault and ethnic cleansing of Artsakh's 

150,000 indigenous Armenian population, Congress must take decisive 

action. "We ask the Committee to press the Biden Administration to 

abandon its reckless policy of false parity and, instead, 

forthrightly condemn Azerbaijan's aggression by taking actions that 

demonstrate a willingness to hold Baku accountable for its criminal 

behavior," stated Yerimyan.

The ANCA testimony was timed with committee hearings this week 

featuring Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is defending 

President Biden's Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget request.  Yerimyan 

urged Congress to "continue full enforcement" of Section 907 

restrictions on U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan.  She went on to call 

for Committee support for requesting a report on Azerbaijan's human 

rights practices pursuant to Section 502B(c) of the Foreign 

Assistance Act through passage of S.Res.540.  "The findings of this 

report will strengthen the case to cut all military assistance to 

Azerbaijan and hold other allies, like Turkey, accountable for 

selling or transferring U.S. arms to Azerbaijan for use against 

innocent Armenian civilians," argued Yerimyan.

The ANCA called on Committees to "conduct oversight of the 

Administration's low levels of humanitarian assistance to Artsakh's 

150,000 refugees" and urged their FY2025 foreign aid legislation to 

include $200 million U.S. aid to Artsakh refugees, reiterating their 

right to return to their homes under international guarantees.  "Our 

current failed U.S. policy in the Caucasus features lectures on 

democracy to democratic Armenia, ships U.S. tax-payer funded military 

aid to dictatorial Azerbaijan, and provides almost no assistance at 

all to at-risk Artsakh refugees. That must change," stated Yerimyan.

The ANCA also urged the Congressional committees to follow up on 

Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights submissions to the 

Departments of State and Treasury, detailing evidence and demanding 

Global Magnitsky sanctions on 40+ senior Azerbaijani officials for 

war crimes and rights abuses during their blockade and aggression 

against Artsakh.

Yerimyan condemned the Biden Administration's decision to send U.S. 

Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mark Libby to the ethnically cleansed 

Artsakh city of Shushi, despite an expressed U.S. policy of 

suspending high-level meetings while Azerbaijan illegally imprisons 

Artsakh leaders and Armenian POWs, continues to occupy sovereign 

Armenian territory, and uses coercion to unilateral Armenian land 

concessions.  "As long as Azerbaijan believes there is more to gain 

through coercion than through negotiations, Armenia will face a 

threat to its very existence," argued Yerimyan.