Army

Army

Azerbaijan has advantage over Armenia in US military aid

19 May 2016 09:26 (UTC +04:00)

Although the US Department of State for the most part observes a policy of "parity" in aid to the two countries, the Department of Defense has been less cautious in maintaining a balance, Kucera wrote.

"Baku has benefited in particular from two Pentagon aid programs, known as Section 1004 and Section 1206, which are subject to less Congressional oversight and less stringent public reporting requirements," he wrote.

Azerbaijan has gotten $8.5 million since 2005 in funding from Section 1004, which provides counternarcotics assistance, and $11.5 million from Section 1206, which provides counterterrorism aid, the article said.

Armenia, by contrast, has gotten just $41,000 in Section 1004 funding and no Section 1206 money, according to data collected by the Washington Security Assistance Monitor advocacy group, which maintains a database of the various US military assistance programs, according to the article.

Much of the money for Azerbaijan has been targeted toward naval forces because of the US's interest in protecting Caspian energy infrastructure, the author wrote.

The U.S. forces have focused particularly on Azerbaijan's 641st Special Warfare Naval Unit with a curriculum that has included "Diving and Floating Mine Response,” he wrote.

Last month's flare-up in fighting on the contact line of Azerbaijani and Armenian troops has revived debate about US military aid in the region, according to the article.

U.S. law, in particular another "Section" -- 907 -- has restricted U.S. aid to Azerbaijan since 1992, but since 2001 those restrictions have been waived every year. The most recent waiver was issued April 21, when the State Department affirmed that U.S. aid to Azerbaijan, Kucera wrote.

“In the wake of the fighting there have been calls to fix Section 907; Armenian lobby groups have called for the U.S. to suspend all aid to Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan has said the restrictions should be removed altogether. "Section 907 was adopted against Azerbaijan in 1992 under the Armenian lobby's pressure and it should be abolished," said senior presidential adviser Ali Hasanov earlier this month”, said the article.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.