[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 44 (Thursday, April 1, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H2039-H2040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE STATE OF ARMENIAN/AZERBAIJAN RELATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to address the decline 
in the state of affairs between Armenia and Azerbaijan brought about by 
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and the members of his ministry. Including 
Namik Abbasov, Minister of National Security, through their 
encouragement of anti-Armenian propaganda that perpetrates anti-
Armenian sentiments in the region.
  Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, I was disheartened to learn of the 
brutal murder of an Armenian soldier by an Azeri soldier. Both were 
attending a NATO Partnership for Peace English-language course in 
Hungary. But I am doubly concerned by additional information that has 
recently been reported that the Azeri government is actually providing 
financial awards to individuals and organizations with the ``best'' 
propaganda works towards Armenians.
  Recent accounts report that the Azerbaijani Ministry of National 
Security, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, has awarded monetary 
prizes up to $2,000 for the ``best'' propaganda works targeting 
Armenians. The Azeri Ministry, for instance, presented a prize in the 
books category to the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences' Human 
Rights Institute for an ``encyclopedia'' entitled ``Crimes Against 
Humanity Perpetrated by Armenian Terrorists and Bandit Formations,'' 
and the minister himself was honored for funding the publication of 
this book. The MNS also granted a top monetary prize to two anti-
Armenian propaganda films.
  I mention this because I believe it is a blatant effort by the Azeri 
government to undermine years of efforts undertaken to encourage a 
peaceful resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict by me and other 
Members of this body as well as the Minsk group and the former U.S. 
administration.
  Three years ago, I was encouraged by developments in the Nagorno 
Karabakh peace process with the announcement of the Key West Agreement, 
reached in April 2001 by President Kocharian and former Azeri President 
Aliyev. I was hopeful that this agreement would lead to a peaceful 
resolution of the conflict and a stabilization of peace in the region. 
However, it was clear that any implementation of the Key West Agreement 
would have to wait until after the various legislative and presidential 
elections in the region including Armenia, Nagorno Karabakh, and 
Azerbaijan and when they were complete.

[[Page H2040]]

  However, shortly after the last of these elections when President 
Ilham Aliyev was elected president of Azerbaijan, the Azeri government 
rejected all of the advancements made by the Minsk group, the former 
Azeri president and President Kocharian, and flatly rejected the Key 
West Agreement. Furthermore, President Ilham Aliyev has noted that any 
negotiations on resolving the Nagorno Karabakh conflict would need to 
start from scratch and any advancements towards peace made in the past 
were invalid.
  So today instead of witnessing the implementation of the Key West 
Agreement or even a revival of negotiations of a peaceful solution to 
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, we are witnessing a regression towards 
the type of behavior on behalf of the Azeri government that encourages 
the violence we saw in the early to mid-1990s. I am discouraged by 
President Aliyev's blatant disregard for the autonomy of Nagorno 
Karabakh and his country's effort to undermine any chance at a peaceful 
resolution to this conflict. In fact, President Aliyev has recently 
said that he is not in any hurry to reach a peaceful resolution to the 
conflict and recently cancelled a meeting between Armenian Foreign 
Minister Vartan Oskanian and the Azeri Foreign Minister planned by 
French, Russian, and U.S. mediators that was scheduled for this past 
Monday; and his excuse was that the agenda was not precise enough.
  I am also discouraged by the current Bush administration in its 
failure to actively address a peaceful resolution to the Nagorno 
Karabakh conflict. During a recent meeting between Deputy Secretary of 
State Richard Armitage and Armenian President Kocharian and Foreign 
Minister Oskanian, Armitage noted that ``our Turkish friends have had 
their hands full recently,'' as an excuse that there would be little 
advancement towards opening the border between Armenia and Turkey or a 
move towards better relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that Armenia has been 
tremendously cooperative with the U.S. in its efforts in the war 
against terror and supportive of the stabilization of both Afghanistan 
and Iraq. However, rather than press President Aliyev toward 
considering peaceful resolutions of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the 
Bush administration perpetrates the conflict by failing to maintain 
military assistance parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan in its fiscal 
year 2005 budget request to Congress. In fact, the Bush administration 
proposed double the military assistance to Azerbaijan that it did to 
Armenia.
  Today I would call on Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev to stop 
promoting propaganda against the Armenian people and make every effort 
to consider the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict 
and begin an open dialogue with Armenian President Kocharian. I also 
call on President Bush and the administration to maintain parity in the 
region and recognize that pitting these nations against each other will 
move us further away from long sought-after peace that is much needed 
in this region.

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