ArmInfo. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin condemned Azerbaijan's ethnic cleansing of Artsakh and its ongoing aggression against Armenia during a Helsinki Commission hearing titled "Supporting Armenia's Democracy and Western Future". This is reported by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
It is noted that three expert witnesses were invited to participate in the hearings: former U.S. Ambassador to the OSCE Dan Baer, former International Crisis Group South Caucasus Analyst Olesya Vardanyan, and President of the Yerevan-based Regional Center for Security and Democracy Tigran Grigoryan. Reflecting on a recent Helsinki Commission delegation visit to Armenia, Commission Chairman Cardin noted that in addition to having perpetrated ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan also seeking to through its continued encroachment into Armenia's sovereign territory.
At the same time, Cardin noted the inequitable terms of the ongoing peace process between Yerevan and Baku and its failure to resolve border issues. According to the invited experts, Azerbaijan's assault on Nagorno-Karabakh and incursions into sovereign Armenian territory is an immediate threat to Armenia's security. They mentioned Azerbaijan's consolidation of its military presence in Armenian territories and Armenia's vulnerability to further military escalation by Azerbaijan. They also noted that Azerbaijan is trying to delay and derail negotiations by conditioning new demands on Armenia, such as changing its Constitution. Referring to the discussion on Capitol Hill, Aram Hamparian, executive director of Washington, D.C., noted that Congress can act where the administration has so clearly failed. According to him, the U.S. legislative body can do so by enacting legislation to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its aggression, imposing sanctions on Azerbaijani war criminals, drastically increasing humanitarian assistance to Armenia, and advocating for a just, durable and dignified peace that ensures the release of illegally detained Armenian prisoners of war and guarantee the right of return for Artsakh Armenians.
