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Rep. Howard Berman Calls On US Administration To Recognize The Armen

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  • Rep. Howard Berman Calls On US Administration To Recognize The Armen

    REP. HOWARD BERMAN CALLS ON US ADMINISTRATION TO RECOGNIZE THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

    armradio.am
    29.02.2012 11:11

    "Two of the least noticed and most dangerous trends of recent years
    have been Azerbaijan's rapidly growing military budget and its
    increasing bellicosity toward Armenian populated Nagorno- Karabakh,"
    Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA), Ranking Member on the House Foreign Affairs
    Committee, said, speaking on the House floor.

    "Last June, during Azerbaijan s largest military parade since the
    Soviet era, President Aliyev vowed to avenge the deaths of Azerbaijani
    soldiers killed during the 1988-1994 Nagorno- Karabakh war and declared
    that "the war isn't over yet; only the first stage is over."

    He then boasted that Azerbaijan s defense budget is twenty times
    larger than it was just eight years previously and larger, in fact,
    than the entire budget of Armenia," Berman stated.

    "It is particularly appropriate that today, February 27 - the
    anniversary of the 1988 Azerbaijani pogrom directed against its own
    Armenian population in Sumgait - that we commit ourselves to stopping
    these ugly threats. Armenian history is drenched in tragedy. Everybody
    knows about the Armenian Genocide, even if, sadly, only a minority of
    my colleagues has been willing to recognize it officially. But fewer
    know about the hundreds of thousands of Armenians murdered under the
    Ottoman regime in the nineteenth century. And fewer still, it seems,
    know about the pogroms and ethnic cleansing that Armenians living in
    Azerbaijan suffered at the hands of Azerbaijanis as the Soviet Union
    was breaking up."

    "The Sumgait pogrom that we recall today lasted three days and
    resulted in the murder of hundreds of Armenian civilians. Other anti-
    Armenian pogroms took place in Kirovobad November 21 27, 1988, and in
    the Azerbaijani capital Baku January 13 19, 1990. During this era,
    there were media reports of Armenians being hunted down and killed
    in their homes. The systematic pattern of all these attacks suggested
    that something even more sinister than a mob uprising was at work."

    "Azerbaijan seems bent on destroying every last vestige of the Armenian
    presence in Azerbaijan For example, there is videotaped evidence of
    the Azerbaijani government's December 2005 systematic desecration and
    destruction of an ancient Armenian cemetery, including thousands of
    intricately-carved grave-stones in Djulfa, in a section of Azerbaijan
    near the Turkish border. I believe our State Department still has
    not adequately examined this incident, and I call on it to do so."

    "Today is a solemn day as we recall this history of murder,
    displacement, and destruction, but it is this very history that
    underscores the importance of self-determination for Nagorno-
    Karabakh. I call on the Administration to press the Azerbaijani
    government to cease its bellicose rhetoric and to stop its headlong
    rush to war now and to adhere strictly to the principled basis of
    the Minsk Process, namely, the search for a peaceful, negotiated
    solution for Nagorno- Karabakh I likewise call on the Administration
    to redouble its efforts to achieve a solution for Nagorno- Karabakh
    And, on this day when we once again reflect on the brutality Armenians
    have suffered, and endured, for centuries," Mr. Berman said, calling
    on the Administration to acknowledge history and to recognize the
    Armenian Genocide.

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