USAN SENDS LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA REGARDING NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT
State Telegraph Agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan
July 26, 2009 Sunday
In light of a flurry of activity regarding the peaceful settlement of
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict – a region of Azerbaijan occupied
by Armenia – with statements and phone calls by President
Obama, statements by the Presidents of Russia and France, OSCE
Chairwoman-in-Office and OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen, as well as
aggressive and unhelpful rhetoric emanating from the radical Armenian
groups in U.S. and abroad, the Board of Directors of the U.S. Azeris
Network (USAN) has sent a letter to President Obama yesterday.
We present abriged version of the letter.
With foreign policy and relations with the world taking a center
stage, particularly with the Eurasian region and Muslim world in
special focus, we welcome your active engagement to settle the
Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) conflict, to depoliticize
the Armenian claims against Turkey, and to engage Turkey more in the
Caucasus peace process, as well as increase trade, economic and other
relations between the regional nations.
As Azerbaijani-Americans, we greatly appreciate your joint declaration
with Presidents of France and Russia, your phone calls about NK
conflict with President Aliyev and President Gul, the reinvigorated
work of the OSCE Minsk Group of which U.S. is a co-chair, the more
equitable and fair foreign assistance FY2010 requests in line with
previous years requests. We urge you, Vice President Biden, Secretary
Clinton and your Administration to step up such positive efforts in
the future, as well as visiting the U.S. strategic ally Azerbaijan
to witness the challenges and effects of the occupation of 16% of
Azerbaijan and displacement of some 12% of its population by Armenia.
Our key aspiration is the liberation of all occupied Azerbaijani lands
through the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on
the basis of Azerbaijan`s territorial integrity. We believe that one
of our most important objectives as a community of people tracing
their heritage to the land of Azerbaijan is to educate our government
and lawmakers to assist in enhancement of the bilateral ties between
Azerbaijan and the United States. Azerbaijani-Americans support
the long-term strategic allied relations between the United States
and Azerbaijan, and we fully encourage the development of bilateral
cooperation between America and all Turkic nations.
Hence, we welcome your positive steps in resolving the NK conflict,
and offer you our full support in light of relentless criticism from
ultranationalist and maximalist Armenian special interest groups that
have built their entire raison d`etre on creating and perpetuating
only negativism, hatemongering and intimidation.
With this said, we want to remind that it is Armenia that is occupying
Azerbaijan for almost two decades now, not the other way around, and it
is Armenia that caused almost a million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs,
and according to U.S. Government, committed crimes against humanity in
Azerbaijan, such as the largest war crime in the region, the Khojaly
Massacre in 1992. Armenia`s creation of a straw-man in the form of
the so-called Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), an entity recognized
by no one, including its own creator, is especially unhelpful to the
peace process and causes nothing but irritation and tensions in the
region. With multiple U.S. Government statements clearly calling
a spade a spade, and with the U.N. Security Council adopting four
resolutions calling for the immediate withdrawal of Armenian military
forces from Azerbaijan, to restore the territorial integrity and
sovereignty of Azerbaijan and the well-being of its people, these
are not concessions as the Armenian side improperly labels them,
but necessary preconditions of the international law and the will of
the people all around Armenia, to restore justice and fairness.
It should be further stressed once again, that we all fully and
unequivocally support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. No
question about it, NK has to remain part of Azerbaijan. Meanwhile,
we also recognize the other Helsinki Final Act principles of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples, which are envisioned within
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and have been agreed to by
the Armenian President in Moscow last year.