AZERBAIJANI REPRESENTATIVES DELIVERED SPEECHES AT CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS
Azeri Press Agency
March 26 2008
Azerbaijan
Washington. Husniyye Hasanova-APA. Chairman of Azerbaijan Society
of America Tomris Azeri, Executive Director of U.S Azeris Network
Adil Bagirov and President of the Azerbaijani-American Council Javid
Huseynov delivered speeches at the Lower House Subcommittee on Foreign
Operations of US Congress.
APA US Bureau reports that representatives of Azerbaijani Diaspora
requested the Congress to render no aid to Nagorno Karabakh in 2009.
Making a speech at the subcommittee hearings on budget estimates for
fiscal year 2009, T. Azeri stated that Azerbaijan was a dynamically
developing country. To her, censorship was lifted in 1993, more than
2000 Mass Media operate in the country and nearly 1400 NGOs have been
registered to date. She said that the US-Azerbaijan energy security
cooperation was of strategic importance and reminded that Condoleezza
Rice and Elmar Mammadyarov had signed a MOU in energy field a year
before and added that Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum
pipelines made great contributions to this cooperation.
Another representative of the Diaspora Adil Bagirov also delivered
a speech and noted that Armenia had received $225 million from the
United States since 1992 for democratization and this figure is
four times more in comparison with the aid rendered to Azerbaijan,
the closest ally of the United States in the region. He shared his
views on the events lately occurred in Armenia and emphasized that
the United States should not support the state, which occupied the
territories of neighboring country, committed genocide, carried on
a policy of ethnic cleansing and even killed its citizens.
Further, Javid Huseynov made a speech and spoke of the economic
advancement of Azerbaijan. He noted that Azerbaijan has sent its
peacekeeping forces to Afghanistan and Iraq.
They requested to take all abovementioned into account, remain in
force the aid to be rendered to Azerbaijan in 2009 and not to render
the assistance to Armenia more than 24 million dollars.
Representatives of Azerbaijani community wished the Congress to render
no aid to Nagorno Karabakh in 2009.