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“RESOLUTION OF THE NAGORNO KARABAGH CONFLICT” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1254-H1255 on March 11, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
RESOLUTION OF THE NAGORNO KARABAGH CONFLICT
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to take this opportunity tonight to welcome the visiting President of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic, Mr. Arkady Ghoukasian. President Ghoukasian is visiting our Nation's capital this week as part of a trip that also includes stops in California and New York, and accompanying the President on his first visit to the United States is Ms. Naira Melkoumian, the Foreign Minister of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic.
Yesterday I took part in a meeting with President Ghoukasian and Foreign Minister Melkoumian that was attended by several of my colleagues in the House from both parties. The President also held private meetings with several other Members of the House and the Senate and representatives of the Armenian Assembly of America and the Armenian National Committee of America also took part in those meetings. The President also had meetings with the State Department and met with some of Washington's leading think tanks and the media.
Mr. Speaker, Nagorno Karabagh is a region in the Caucasus Mountains of the former Soviet Union that has now and always has historically been populated by Armenians. Unfortunately, Nagorno Karabagh's independence has not been given recognition by the United States or the international community. Neighboring Azerbaijan continues to claim Nagorno Karabagh's territory. A bloody war was fought over this region, and the Karabagh Armenians successfully defended their homeland. A cease-fire was declared in 1994, which has more or less held despite ongoing violations by Azerbaijan, but a final resolution of the conflict has been elusive.
Mr. Speaker, the United States is a leader in the effort to help the parties to this conflict achieve a just and lasting resolution of the conflict. The U.S. is a co-chair along with France and Russia of the Minsk Group, of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe established to resolve this dispute.
The United States and our Minsk Group partners last year put forward a new plan known as the Common-State proposal for resolving the conflict. Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh have both agreed to accept the proposal as a basis for negotiations despite serious reservations, but Azerbaijan's response to the constructive proposal by the United States and our partners has been a flat no.
Mr. Speaker, the U.S. non-recognition of Nagorno Karabagh creates issues about who in the State Department should meet with President Ghoukasian or other representatives of Nagorno Karabagh, and last week I was joined by 19 of my colleagues on a bipartisan basis in writing to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott asking that in his capacity as the American co-chair of the Minsk Group he personally meet with Mr. Ghoukasian during his visit to our Nation's capital. Unfortunately, Secretary Talbott was not in Washington at the time of President Ghoukasian's visit, and President Ghoukasian met instead with Donald Keyser who is special negotiator for Nagorno Karabagh and the NIS regional conflicts. Mr. Keyser I should say is doing a fine job in trying to win the confidence of the parties to the conflict, but I believe it is important to stress the need for the highest level contacts possible which are appropriate and provide a sign of goodwill that would help encourage progress in the negotiations. President Ghoukasian's status as the elected leader of one of the parties to the conflict argues in of according him high-level recognition, and indeed our two Minsk Group partners, France and Russia, provide a stronger degree of recognition for the Karabagh government than the United States does.
Last month a bipartisan group of Members of Congress and our staffs met with Special Negotiator Keyser. At that meeting and in our follow-
up letter to Secretary Talbott we urged that the United States stay the course in terms of the compromise Common-State approach, and, as I mentioned, this approach has been accepted by Armenian Nagorno Karabagh as a basis for direct negotiations, but thus far Azerbaijan has rejected this approach. We hope that this rejection will not be the last word, and we urge the administration to take proactive steps to reverse Azerbaijan's rejection.
Mr. Speaker, last week I testified before the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the House Committee on Appropriations on the fiscal year 2000 legislation, and I called for assistance to both the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Nagorno Karabagh and to offer some proposals for how we can advance the peace process through this legislation. The subcommittee, I should say, has been extremely attentive to the concerns of Armenia, Nagorno Karabagh and the entire Caucasus region, and thanks to the subcommittee U.S. humanitarian assistance is flowing to Nagorno Karabagh. I urged the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations to express its strong support for the U.S. position in the Minsk Group negotiations on Nagorno Karabagh, and I hope the subcommittee will adopt language calling on the State Department to stay the course and to press Azerbaijan to come back to the negotiating table. There are strong indications that Azerbaijan believes that it can maintain its rejectionist policy by playing the oil card given the interest in developing petroleum resources in the Caspian Sea although recent test drilling indicates less than expected quantities of oil are causing some major American oil companies to pull out of Azerbaijan.
And there have been also been troubling statements from Azerbaijan's President Aliyev that he considers renewal of military conflict a viable option for settling the dispute.
Mr. Speaker, if I could just submit the rest of my statement for the Record, I just want to say it is very important that we send a message to Azerbaijan that their intransigence in opposing the Minsk Group proposal is a matter of concern here in Washington.
Finally, I am concerned about the aid numbers for Armenia and Azerbaijan that were included in the Administration's budget request, which provide for a decrease in aid to Armenia, and an increase in aid to Azerbaijan. This is strange, since Armenia (as well as Nagorno Karabagh) has accepted the compromise proposal supported by the U.S., while Azerbaijan has rejected it. But the Administration budget proposed cutting aid to Armenia while increasing aid to Azerbaijan. The unfortunate message to Azerbaijan is that their intransigence in opposing the Minsk Group proposal is not a matter of concern here in Washington. That is not the signal we should be sending.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Mrs. Mink) is recognized for 5 minutes.
(Mrs. MINK of Hawaii addressed the House. Her remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.)
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