ANCA Answers Ambassador Kristina Kvien

Challenges Reckless U.S. Policy of Forcing Democratic Artsakh under Genocidal Azerbaijan

July 6, 2023

WASHINGTON, DC – Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian today challenged U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Kristina Kvien’s recent remarks recklessly supporting the forced subordination of democratic Artsakh to dictatorial Azerbaijan – a certain “death sentence” for more than 120,000 indigenous Christian Armenians.

Hamparian’s full statement follows:

Ambassador Kvien’s statement was not accidental.

It was, in fact, a calculated move – part of a broader Biden-Harris Administration diplomatic effort to force democratic Artsakh under genocidal Azerbaijan.

The President is pursuing this reckless approach well aware that any settlement along these lines represents a certain death sentence for the more than 120,000 indigenous Christian Armenians of Artsakh. This inescapable truth explains why he and his team are striving so mightily – for both domestic and diplomatic reasons – to wash their hands of responsibility for backing Baku’s openly announced ethnic cleansing of Artsakh.

Such moral cowardice is unworthy of a country with America’s claim to moral standing, global leadership, and military superiority.

The United States is under both moral and international legal obligations to pro-actively prevent and remedy ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijan’s own words and actions (blockades, attacks, blackouts, hate speech, outright threats, etc.) are more than ample evidence that the Armenians of Artsakh and the border regions of Armenia face genocidal danger.

The Administration’s failure to take decisive preventive and preemptive action to protect Artsakh makes the United States complicit in Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Armenians. Even worse, the Administration emboldens Azerbaijani aggression by continually flashing green lights to the Aliyev regime – continuing U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan, denying U.S. humanitarian aid to Artsakh, and repeatedly failing to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its war crimes and rights abuses.

It is time for the Biden-Harris Administration to meet America’s moral and legal obligations to prevent Azerbaijani genocide against Artsakh:

1) The U.S. should set a hard deadline for Baku to lift its blockade and cease all acts of aggression against Artsakh and Armenia.

2) The U.S. should impose Global Magnitsky and other sanctions on senior Azerbaijani officials for failing to meet this deadline, fully enforce Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, and block all direct and third-party sales or transfers of U.S. weapons or defense articles to Azerbaijan.

3) The U.S. should immediately undertake concrete actions to prevent genocide in Artsakh by leading international effort for the recognition of Artsakh’s status as self-governing, requiring 1) United Nations security guarantees; 2) a sustained international peacekeeping presence; 3) robust U.S. and international humanitarian and developmental assistance, 4) secure transportation, commerce, and energy links to Armenia, 5) a strategic buffer zone, and 6) food, water and energy security.

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