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US Azeris welcome denying financial support to Armenian-occupied Karabakh

01 August 2011 08:32 (UTC +04:00)

The organizations said the community members actively participated in the relevant Pax Turcica advocacy campaign, â€œin achieving this major milestone for the first time in 2011â€.

The US Congress has been allocating funds to address humanitarian needs of the victims of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since 1992. In 2005, under pressure from the Armenian-American interest groups, the wording of the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations bills was revised to provide U.S. funds only to the Armenian community of Nagorno-Karabakh, while over 600,000 Azerbaijanis expelled from the region in the course of the conflict remained deprived of assistance.

â€œIn the absence of a political settlement to the conflict, the ethnicity-driven U.S. assistance to one conflict party not only undermined the original Congressional intent, but also questioned the U.S. role as an impartial mediatorâ€, said the Diasporas organizationsâ€™ statement.

Despite the annual Congressional testimonies and campaigns by Azerbaijani-American organizations opposing the direct US aid to Nagorno-Karabakh, in past 6 years, Armenian-American lobby succeeded in increasing the allocation amount from $3 million to $8 million. Since February 2011, over 6,000 letters sent via the newly-launched Pax Turcica CapWiz system to the Members of Congress highlighted the fact that the US aid to Nagorno-Karabakh unfairly excluded the Azerbaijani victims of the conflict and that the annual allocation exponentially exceeded the programmatic capacity on the ground.

â€œIts noteworthy that these PTI arguments became compelling for many Americans of non-Turkic heritage to also join in expressing their concern about the waste of US taxpayer money for satisfying the whim of one ethnic special interest group in Congressâ€, say the Diaspora members.

â€œAhead of the upcoming August 3rd vote on the FY 2012 foreign aid bill in the full House Appropriations Committee, we once more call upon all Azerbaijani- and Turkic-Americans to build up on our initial success by sending the following PTI Capwiz action letterâ€, they call.