AZERBAIJAN SOCIETY OF AMERICA APPEALS TO US CONGRESS SUBCOMMITTEE

Today, Azerbaijan
April 4 2007

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.

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, ASA president Tomris Azeri told the APA’s US bureau.

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.

"Azerbaijan 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," the appeal says.

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