Political Quotes

“I am a cosponsor with the Senator from Kentucky of the second-degree amendment which was offered earlier today to the amendment of the Senator from Kansas. As many of my colleagues may know, contained within S. 579 is the waiver, which we have been discussing, of section 907 of the Freedom Support Act. Section 907 restricts some forms of U.S. assistance to the Government of Azerbaijan until it takes demonstrable steps to cease all blockades against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijan blockade has cut off transport of fuel, food, medicine, and other vital goods and commodities to these regions. This in turn has forced the United States to send ongoing emergency lifesaving assistance to Armenia and, more recently, Nagorno-Karabakh as well. The present conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia has been the subject of an ongoing peace process. With the consent of the United States, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, their Minsk Group, as we have heard, has been assigned the responsibility of fashioning a peace proposal satisfactory to the conflicting parties. Despite serious reservations, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh have accepted the OSCE's recommendations. As the Senator from Maryland just pointed out, Azerbaijan has not. In fact, they have summarily rejected the compromise peace proposal.”