Political Quotes

“As a matter of fact, I think it is very important that if we are going to provide aid to that region of the world that we provide it to the one part of that region that has been wracked by warfare, and that is Nagorno-Karabagh. If there is any part of the Caucasus that needs our help, that is an area that should be receiving our help. Indeed, a portion of the aid that we provide to that region should go through nongovernmental organizations to the people of Nagorno-Karabagh, and I will be working with the Armenians Issues Caucus and others, both in the committee and here on the floor, to make sure we provide that aid. Also at that same committee hearing I was more than a bit surprised and certainly not impressed when I saw that the administration's plan for aid to the Newly Independent States, the states of the former Soviet Union, anticipated that going from 1997 to 1998 they would increase aid to Azerbaijan by $15 million and decrease aid to Armenia by $15 million. Now, they assured me that that figure was a mere coincidence, but whether it is a coincidence or a plan, it can certainly be reversed.”