 WASHINGTON—“I
believe personally that the United States should recognize
Nagorno-Karabakh. I certainly would be willing to do whatever I
can to have that happen,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, the co-chair
of the Congressional Caucus on Armenian Issues, in a recent
interview with the Armenian Reporter.
The New Jersey Democrat also told the
Reporter’s Washington Editor Emil Sanamyan that Nagorno-Karabakh
has every right to be an independent nation. “So, what you
really need to do is to have the State Department change its
position,” said Pallone in the interview.
The Congressman also explained that recent
statements—with a clear biased toward Azerbaijan and Turkey—by
Minsk Group co-chairman Matthew Bryza reflected current State
Department policy on Nagorno-Karabakh, adding simply that the
State Department was “wrong.”
“They [the State Dept.] have to realize
that according to the Soviet legal framework, Nagorno-Karabakh
had self-government and certain rights, including holding a
referendum and becoming an independent country, which is what
had happened,” explained Pallone in the interview.
“So it’s not simply an issue of
territorial integrity versus self-determination.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a successor state to the Soviet Union, and
no different from Armenia or Russia in that respect,” Pallone
told Sanamyan.
“At this pivotal moment in the Nagorno
Karabakh peace process, with the State Department applying
unprecedented pressure on Armenia to accept the fatally flawed
Madrid principles that would—if adopted—cement Armenia into a
structurally vulnerable position in the region, we are pleased
to see Congressman Pallone, once again, articulating the view of
the Armenian Caucus that the U.S. should get back on the right
side of what is fundamentally an issue of democracy, by formally
recognizing the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic,”
said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.
Pallone went on to call the Karabakh
situation a “powder keg,” adding “…if you do not work to solve
this situation and come up with a compromise, there is a
potential for another major war in the Caucasus that would have
major implications for several neighboring countries, Turkey and
Russia especially. And that this strategic concern must be
appreciated.”
On the matter of recognition, Pallone
said: “…it will be difficult, because a lot of members of
Congress are not that familiar [with the subject], I assume that
the State Department would be against it, and I am not sure how
much Armenia itself would be pushing for it. So it would
probably be hard to do.”
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