Hope floats on appropriations bill 907 waiver could aid war on terror

At press time, a Congressional conference committee was about to reconcile House and Senate versions of the 2002 foreign affairs appropriations bill. The Senate version contains language that provides President Bush with the authority to waive Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act for one year.

"Section 907," as it commonly known, prohibits direct U.S. government assistance to Azerbaijan:

Section 907 of the 1992
Freedom Support Act
"United States Assistance under this or any other act (other than assistance under Title V of this act) may not be provided to the government of Azerbaijan until the President determines, and so reports to Congress, that the government of Azerbaijan is taking demonstrable steps to cease all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabagh."

Armenian supporters in Congress inserted the language in the 1992 act in support of secessionist attempts by Armenian nationalists in the mountainous Azerbaijan region of Nagorno-Karabagh. In the bloody war that followed, Armenian forces with Russian help invaded and conquered nearly 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory and generated about one million refugees and displaced persons. Armenia has ignored United Nations resolutions calling for withdrawal from occupied Azerbaijani lands.

Azeri family near their destroyed house in Lachin district, 1991.

The aid sanction has severely hampered US relations with Azerbaijan, an overtly pro-American, oil-rich country on the Western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Azerbaijan, sandwiched between Russia and Iran, has joined NATO’s "Partnership for Peace Program," declines membership in the OPEC oil producers’ cartel, and actively encourages American investment to develop the shattered economy the country inherited from the former USSR.

The tragic terrorist acts of September 11 brought the contradictions of Section 907 into sharp relief. Azerbaijan was one of the first nations in the region to strongly support the US campaign on terror and join the international coalition. The country shares intelligence and has offered overflight and landing rights to the international coalition. Section 907, however, made it impossible for the United States to accept the Azerbaijani offer for landing rights.

Senator Sam Brownback (Republican-Kansas), a sponsor of earlier Senate efforts to repeal or modify Section 907, says, "Because of our sanctions against Azerbaijan, if we were to use the landing rights offered us, we would not be able to train Azeri personnel to protect our troops and equipment, nor treat our personnel who might have a medical problem."

Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United States, Hafiz Pashayev says, "The events of September 11 have emphasized the injustice of Section 907." But despite US government efforts to shore up support for the war on terror among moderate Moslem nations like Azerbaijan, however, Pashayev warns, "Some members of the Armenian lobby are actively trying to insert language into the conference committee version of the foreign affairs bill to kill the Presidential waiver."

Azerbaijan has no counter to the powerful Armenian lobby in the US, but is making efforts now to build one. Recently, more than 600 Azerbaijanis living in the US and Europe gathered in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku, for a two-day forum. The ambassador stressed that "this will help mobilize Azeris who live in the US and Europe to help educate people in these countries."

"Since independence in 1991," the ambassadors says, "Azerbaijan has expressed its desire in the strongest terms to be a member of the pro-Western countries which value internationally accepted standards of behavior. We do it for our own reasons, and because we believe it is necessary to keep a balance in the region.

Section 907 has hampered Azerbaijani attempts to participate in the NATO partnership program, the ambassador revealed. " The US could not offer us assistance under the Partnership for Peace program, " he says. " We are not applying for membership in NATO, but we want to coordinate efforts to enhance security in the region and broaden European-Atlantic security."

This past summer, Azerbaijan could only stand by helplessly as Iran dispatched a naval vessel to scare off an oil research vessel in an area of Azerbaijani territorial waters now claimed by Iran. To bolster its claim, Iran also sent military fighters to overfly Azerbaijan’s cities and towns. Iran has long opposed Azerbaijan’s ties to the US and its hospitality to major American oil companies exploring for oil in the Caspian Sea.

The Azerbaijan government makes clear that relations with the US would quickly improve if Section 907 were repealed. "If 907 were repealed, the bilateral relationship would boom," Ambassador Pashayev says. "The conflict with Armenia would be solved much more quickly. In all areas, whether political, economic or in security, the relationship would expand."