Domestic

Home page

Domestic

Azerbaijan Society of America appeals to US Congress Subcommittee

04 April 2007 14:54 (UTC +04:00)

The Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA) is going to appeal to all members of US Congress Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, And Related Programs with regard to financial aid to the South Caucasian countries envisaged in state budget for 2008, ASA president Tomris Azeri told the APAâ€™s US bureau. The appeal supports the decision of allocating $18mln as economic aid to Azerbaijan, $4.8m as foreign military aid and $1mln to training of our servicemen.
Tomris Azeri noted that financial aid allocated by White House administration for Azerbaijan is not completely adequate to opportunities created by our country for the US. She called on the members of the subcommittee to debate amount the amount of the aid. The appeal underlines that Azerbaijan is the only Muslim country cooperating with NATO in the framework of Individual Partnership Action Plan (IPAP), and both Clinton and Bush administration support the Contract of the Century signed in 1994 and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline commissioned in 2006. Tomris Azeri mentioned that Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and US Secretary of State signed understanding memorandum on March 22.
â€œAzerbaijan is one of the first states that joined the antiterrorism coalition. Azerbaijan arrested and extradited terrorists, and US government welcomed the measures taken for preventing weapons of mass destruction. Azerbaijani soldiers participated in peacekeeping operation in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. Taking all these into account, ASA considers it important to annul the Section 907 to the Freedom Support Act against Azerbaijan, offer financial aid to Azerbaijani community of Nagorno Karabakh along with Armenian community. Every tenth Azerbaijani became refugee as a result of Armenian aggression and US official bodies recognized Nagorno Karabakh as inseparable part of Azerbaijan,â€ the appeal says. /APA/