The Working Group of the Milli Majlis of the Azerbaijan Republic for interparliamentary connections between Azerbaijan and the USA has released a Declaration in connection with the letter that several members of the US Senate had addressed to President Joseph Biden on 9 February 2021. The Senators who signed to that letter subject Turkey for criticism for having supported Azerbaijan whilst Azerbaijan had used the possibilities available to it under the international laws to restore its territorial integrity and resolve the conflict over Highland Garabagh. We now present you with the said Declaration being issued in response to the exceedingly biased message of the aforementioned Senators to Mr Biden, the President of the United States.

THE DECLARATION by
The Working Group of the Milli Majlis for
Interparliamentary Connections between Azerbaijan and the USA
Baku, 13 February 2021

It is with astonishment and considerable regret that we have learnt of the letter from certain members of the US Senate sent to President Joseph Biden dated 9 February 2021. In this relation, we, the Members of the Milli Majlis Working Group for interparliamentary connections between Azerbaijan and the USA, would wish to state the following:

- Most of the US Senators who signed the letter in question had never called on Armenia to end the occupation of the territories recognised internationally as belonging to the Azerbaijan Republic - the occupation that has lasted for more than thirty years.

- The US Senators, for the most part, had never once made known in any manner their concern about the ethnic cleansing applied to the Azerbaijani people consequent to the occupation policy, nor about the eviction of hundreds of thousands of people from their native land with their becoming displaced persons as a result, the outrageous trampling-down of their human rights and the destruction and marauding of Azerbaijan's villages, towns and cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people that is as ancient as it is rich;

- Many of the US Senators did not condemn the numerous murders of Azerbaijanis by Armenia and the war crimes committed by the Azerbaijani people including, notoriously enough, the Khojali Genocide the 29th anniversary of which will be marked in a matter of days;

- The demands to respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty as well as the inviolability of the borders of the Azerbaijan Republic and to discontinue the Armenian occupation are contained in the UN Security Council Resolutions Nos 822, 853, 874B and 884; it is noteworthy that Washington voted for all and each of those resolutions officially;

- The Azerbaijan Republic de-occupied its own territories in the course of the 44-day Patriotic War whilst acting in conformity with the international laws and, thus, the Azerbaijan Republic also enforced the aforesaid and well-known resolutions of the UN Security Council;

- The peace enforcement operation initiated in response to yet another armed provocation on Armenia's part was carried out wholly and purely within the national boundaries of the Azerbaijan Republic as recognised internationally;

- It is inadmissible of the US Senators to condemn Azerbaijan, which has made its national territory whole again, of having resolved the conflict in question;

- Declarations and claims of this nature do not exactly serve the cause of ensuring peace and security in the South Caucasian region; quite on the contrary, they are liable to spur the radical and revanchist forces present in Armenia to aggravate the situation once more;

- It is injustice of the Senators to criticise Turkey over having extended the political and moral support to the righteous struggle of Azerbaijan and having done so, incidentally, in full compliance with the standards and principles of the international law;

- The ever-mounting politicisation of the subject of human rights is a source of serious concern;

- It is inadmissible of the Senators to attempt to interfere with the internal affairs of Turkey, a sovereign state;

- Whilst the protesters who had found their way into the US Congress illegally were put down as 'terrorists', the movement that attempted a putsch to overthrow the democratically-elected Turkish government on 15 July 2016 happens to receive support and its members are pictured as 'human rights defenders' - that is a manifestation and a fine example of bias and partiality;

- All attempts to accuse Turkey of antagonising any ethnic group whatsoever are doomed to failure because Turkey is a state exercising its right of self-defence against the numerous regional threats looming over it and endeavouring to combat terror within and outside its borders, and has throughout its history been a country where diverse ethnic communities have lived in peace and tranquillity;

- We appreciate very much the stabilising role that Turkey plays in the South Caucasus as well as its activities aimed at strengthening peace and economic progress in the region;

- We now call on the US Senate not only to support the efforts made by Azerbaijan and Turkey to implant peace and stability in the South Caucasus but also to make a contribution of the US Senate's own to this mission.