ANCA gives Biden-Harris administration failing grade on Artsakh policy

WASHINGTON—The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) gave the Biden administration a failing grade for arming, abetting and emboldening Azerbaijan’s 2023 genocide of Artsakh’s indigenous Armenians, refusing to hold the Aliyev regime accountable for its crimes, undertaking no meaningful steps to secure the return of Artsakh Armenians or the release of Armenian hostages and providing only minimal assistance to at-risk Artsakh refugees. The ANCA statement is below.

ANCA statement on the Biden administration’s failure to address Azerbaijan’s genocide of Artsakh:

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is profoundly disappointed by the Biden-Harris administration for their continued refusal to take meaningful action to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its genocidal assault on Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) last year, its silence on the right of return for the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh and the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) failure to provide urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the over 120,000 Armenian refugees forced from their homes.

During the 2020 Artsakh War, the Biden-Harris campaign made lofty promises to the Armenian American community — pledging to prohibit U.S. military assistance to Azerbaijan. Just months later, the Biden administration reneged on that commitment — and, in a callous act of betrayal, announced the reauthorization of security assistance to Azerbaijan just a day before recognizing the Armenian Genocide. The Biden-Harris administration again reauthorized military assistance to Azerbaijan in 2022, even in the wake of Azerbaijan’s widely documented human rights violations and incursion into the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia — sending a clear signal to the despotic Aliyev regime that it would face no consequences for its authoritarian aggression.

There is no clearer example of the Biden-Harris administration’s two-faced policy towards Armenia than the spineless inaction of USAID Administrator Samantha Power during Azerbaijan’s blockade and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. As Azerbaijan deprived Artsakh’s 120,000 Armenians of access to food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian goods in a brazen violation of international law — Administrator Power refused to acknowledge the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding. The genocidal ethnic cleansing of Artsakh’s entire Armenian population was a humanitarian catastrophe the United States had every opportunity to prevent but instead chose to enable — sacrificing the existence of the region’s indigenous Christian Armenian population for misguided geopolitical interests.

Samantha Power’s recent visit to Armenia following the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh amounted to little more than a tone-deaf publicity stunt — a cold, calculated attempt to use the victims of ethnic cleansing as political props. To date, USAID has provided a meager $21 million in humanitarian assistance for Armenian refugees — a fraction of the estimated $2 billion needed to address the immediate humanitarian needs of those forcibly displaced from their homes. It remains unclear how much of this modest amount has actually reached families in need.

The Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous response to the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh has continued in its facilitation of a fundamentally inequitable and unjust peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan — one that is seeking to force Armenia to make costly unilateral concessions at the expense of its security and sovereignty, while normalizing Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing and legitimizing its hostage diplomacy. In working to force Armenia to accept a hasty and flawed peace deal, the Biden-Harris administration is undermining Armenia’s long-term regional security. The Biden-Harris administration’s refusal to impose meaningful costs on Azerbaijan for its brazen violation of international law continues to embolden the Aliyev regime.

The inaction of the Biden-Harris administration on issues related to Artsakh will weigh heavily on the minds of Armenian American voters this November — including those in the key swing states of Nevada and Michigan as well as in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With the ascension of Vice President Harris as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Armenian American voters expect decisive action to rectify the Biden-Harris administration’s shameful abandonment of Artsakh’s Armenians — starting with the immediate prohibition of U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan, the imposition of targeted sanctions against Azerbaijani war criminals, actions to guarantee the right of return for the indigenous Armenians of Artsakh and a substantial increase in humanitarian assistance to Artsakh refugees.

A just, durable and dignified peace in the South Caucasus is only possible through accountability. The failure to redress Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, secure the release of illegally detained Armenian prisoners and ensure an internationally guaranteed right of return for Artsakh’s Armenians will not only encourage Azerbaijan’s genocidal aspirations — but also send a dangerous signal to other abusive regimes that the United States is only prepared to defend the principles of human rights, democracy and international law when geopolitically convenient.