SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE CALLS FOR $65 MILLION IN AID TO ARMENIA

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved a series of measures this week, including the Fiscal Year 2025 State Foreign Operations Bill, calling for $65 million in assistance for Armenia.

The report language states that “not less than $65,000,000” will be earmarked “for Armenia to continue to advance reform efforts and Euro-Atlantic integration.”

In a not so veiled message to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev about his record of violating every agreement he signed, and moving the goalposts on current negotiations to cover up genocide, the report language highlighted that the “Committee supports efforts to reach a lasting peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and directs the Secretary of State and USAID Administrator to consider the status of such negotiations when allocating funds made available by the act.”

It did not go unnoticed by legislators that the opportunity extended to Azerbaijan and Armenia to reach an agreement during the NATO summit in Washington this month – at the invitation of Secretary of State Antony Blinken – was torpedoed by Azerbaijan, despite Secretary Blinken’s encouragement that the two countries were close to a deal.

To underline his reluctance to reach an agreement, Aliyev also refused to meet his Armenian counterpart at a European community meeting in England a week later, while piling on condition upon condition – including amending the Armenian constitution, the contrived right of return to the newly-invented country of Western Azerbaijan (Armenia proper), and an extraterritorial Zangezur corridor – and at the same time proposing to avoid a treaty by suggesting agreement upon principles only.

In view of the scale of ethnic cleansing to which the Armenian people of Artsakh were subjected, the Report also states that funds “should be made available for humanitarian assistance for persons who have been displaced by the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, including for the needs of refugees who have been displaced since September 2023.”

In addition, the Committee “supports the efforts of OTI to respond to the needs of those displaced by the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.” Further, the Committee “supports humanitarian demining and unexploded ordnance clearance activities in areas affected by fighting in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as appropriate, subject to prior consultation with the Committees on Appropriations.”

The Report also requires the Secretary of State to consult with the Committees on Appropriations before obligating funds to Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The Committee made clear that funding for the Assistance to Europe, Eurasia, and Central Asia (AEECA) program is “for democracy programs, including to strengthen civil society, protect human rights, and support independent media; and economic and security assistance, which shall be prioritized and allocated based on the extent to which the governments of such countries demonstrate capacity and political will to pursue regional stability and economic integration, and to counter the malign influence of the Russian Federation and other actors, as determined by the Secretary of State in consultation with the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development.”

The Bill itself restated Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act and the traditional carve-outs.