U.S. lawmakers call on State Dept to act against Turkey, Azerbaijan

Sixty U.S. lawmakers have called on State Secretary Mike Pompeo to take decisive action in condemning Azerbaijan and Turkey over the clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh that erupted earlier this week, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) said in a press release on Saturday.

In a letter to Pompeo, representatives Frank Pallone, Adam Schiff and Jackie Speier along with members of both the Senate and House of Representatives pressed for an immediate end to U.S. security assistance to Azerbaijan and called on the Trump administration to immediately engage with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan for Turkey’s disengagement from the conflict.

Erdoğan has vocalised Turkey’s firm support for Azerbaijan, saying his country was ready to do whatever was necessary to eject Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh. Aside from selling military equipment to Azerbaijan, Turkey has also supplied Syrian mercenaries to the front lines, according to Russia, France and independent observers including the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Armenia has also repeatedly accused Turkey of providing Azeri forces with air support. Ankara denies both accusations.

“If Turkey is unwilling to step back from active engagement in the conflict, then the State Department should immediately suspend all sales and transfers of military equipment to Ankara,” the lawmakers wrote. “Given the possibility that this conflict could engulf the region and draw in other external actors, it is imperative that the U.S. use its diplomatic leverage to bring about an immediate ceasefire.”

The United States, France and Russia – all co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group set up in 1992 to mediate in the decades-old Nagorno-Karabakh spat – jointly called for a cessation of hostilities and a return to negotiations to find a resolution.

The lawmakers told Pompeo that the ongoing clashes represented “further evidence that the U.S. policy of equivalence between Armenia and Azerbaijan has failed”.

“For far too long, the United States and other members of the Minsk Group have drawn a false equivalence between Armenia and Azerbaijan, even as the latter threatens war and refuses to agree to monitoring along the line of contact,” they noted.

Ongoing clashes between Armenian and Azeri forces, which started on Sunday, is the latest flare-up in an ongoing dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh. The fighting has threatened to expand beyond the breakaway state that is located within Azerbaijan’s borders but controlled by an ethnic Armenian majority.

“Armenian Americans and our allies in Congress demand a stop to the killing, sanctions on Turkey, and an immediate cut-off of U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan,” said Aram Hamparian, executive director of the AMCA, an Armenian American political organisation. “Erdoğan and (Azeri President Ilham) Aliyev – two dictators conspiring to complete the work of 1915 – need to be held accountable now.”