ANCA Strongly Opposed One-Sided, Hostile Measure Advanced by Congressional Turkey Caucus Co-Chairs

WASHINGTON—U.S. Senate and House conferees on Thursday struck down the anti-Armenian Chabot-Cohen amendment – a hostile measure advanced by Congressional Turkey Caucus Co-Chairs Steve Chabot (R-OH) and Stephen Cohen (D-TN) as part of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 National Defense Authorization Bill.

The amendment – strongly opposed by the ANCA – would have called for a one-sided report on the status of selectively identified internally displaced persons in Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Azerbaijan.

“We welcome today’s decision by NDAA conferees to strike down the Chabot-Cohen Amendment,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.  “This was, as we said from the start, a hostile, one-sided anti-Armenian measure – proposed by two of Ilham Aliyev’s most reliable Congressional apologists. Congress was right to reject it on a bipartisan basis.”

Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI), House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ), House Foreign Affairs Committee Senior Member Brad Sherman (D-CA), and House Armed Services Committee Senior Member Jackie Speier (D-CA) were among key Congressional leaders who worked with NDAA bill conferees, tasked to iron out differences between the Senate and House versions of the measure, to remove the one-sided Chabot-Cohen language.

ANCA Rapid Responders sent over 100,000 letters to Congressional leaders to oppose the Chabot-Cohen amendment, arguing that maintaining the provision “would further undermine the U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group as an honest broker, and set back the cause of peace by rewarding Azerbaijan’s brutal aggression against Artsakh.”

The FY 2021 NDAA Bill will now go back to the Senate and House for final Congressional approval and then head to the White House for the President’s signature.