MPs demand Azerbaijan cut military ties with US

Forty-three Azerbaijani MPs have appealed to Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov to ‘review’ the country’s relationship with the US, including pulling out of several military agreements. 

The MPs signed the statement on 5 October demanding Bayramov terminate the Joint Declaration on Future Military and Defense Cooperation, signed in 1997, and the Agreement on the Acquisition of Equipment and Mutual Services, signed in 2013.

They also demanded an immediate stop to any ongoing negotiations on new agreements or the extension of existing agreements and the suspension of all projects implemented by USAID and other US-based organisations. 

The appeal was made in response to a letter signed by 11 US Senators and 49 members of the House of Representatives on 3 October, which urged Secretary of State Antony Blinken to take ‘immediate action’ to address Azerbaijan’s human rights violations. 

‘We urge the State Department to press for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, hostages, and POWs, including ethnic Armenians, to enable a more conducive environment for successful diplomacy at COP29’, the statement read.

They noted that Azerbaijan’s human rights record had remained ‘deeply concerning, with no improvement’, citing both Human Rights Watch and the US State Department’s most recent Human Rights Report. 

The statement also highlighted Azerbaijan’s large-scale invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, the 10-month blockade of the Lachin Corridor, and the September 2023 ‘cleansing of ethnic Armenians’ in Nagorno-Karabakh, which ‘blatantly violated international law and led to significant and continued human suffering’.

[Read on OC Media: The ‘Black Garden’ becomes ‘a black corner’ for Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians]

On 4 October, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev commented on the letter before parliament. 

‘This morning, I glanced through that appeal; it is a dirty appeal that cannot influence our will’, he said.

He also alleged that the real author behind the appeal was the US Department of State itself.

‘In other words, they are writing letters to themselves to threaten us, to accuse us. After all, what have we done? We have liberated our native lands. Is there an Armenian living here? No, you, the residents of Jabrayil are.’ 

According to Azerbaijani MP Erkin Gadirli, who did not sign the appeal to Bayramov, the US, as well as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, have ‘slandered Azerbaijan’.

‘They accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing. Why do they write about Karabakh, if they want to highlight human rights issues?’

He noted that while in regards to human rights in Azerbaijan, he agreed with the US appeal, he did not feel as if the US had respected Azerbaijan’s sovereignty.

‘They mix the points like Azerbaijan is preparing for war with the Armenians, like we do not recognise Armenia’s sovereignty, and like we ethnically cleansed Armenians’ Gadirli said. He added that even to a person like him, this letter seemed ‘disgusting’.

Read in Armenian on CivilNet.