75 members of the US Congress called on the president’s administration to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan, stop US military aid to Baku, provide humanitarian assistance to the forcibly displaced population from Nagorno-Karabakh, and deploy international observers in the Lachine Corridor.
“On September 19, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked military attack on Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) to subjugate the ethnic Armenian population of the region forcibly. After a 24-hour attack that displaced several thousand civilians and killed more than 200, Artsakh authorities agreed to disarm to avoid further bloodshed.
Azerbaijan’s military attack is the culmination of the brutal nine-month siege of Artsakh. One hundred twenty thousand civilians in the region, including 30,000 children, were deprived of food, medicine, and other necessities. In light of the massive displacement of the population of Artsakh, it becomes clear that our country’s response to this crisis was not commensurate with the large-scale devastation of the problem. We believe that the United States should make it clear to Azerbaijan that its unprovoked aggression against Artsakh is unacceptable and will be met with an appropriate response,” the congressmen wrote in the letter.
The members of Congress proposed implementing amendment 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which prohibited the US government from providing military aid to Azerbaijan. Also, there was a call to subject Azerbaijani officials to personal sanctions by applying the “Magnitsky Law.”
In addition, the letter’s authors proposed providing humanitarian aid to the population displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh. They called on the international community to get involved in this matter.
It should be noted that the letter’s initiators, addressed to Joe Biden, are former speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and Congresswoman Anna Eshu.
