WASHINGTON, DC – The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) renewed calls on Congress to strike presidential waiver authority of Section 907 restrictions on US assistance to Azerbaijan, in the wake of a long-awaited General Accountability Office (GAO) report revealing that the State Department consistently failed to inform Congress of the impact of over $164 million in assistance to Baku on the military balance between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“The human consequences of the terrible war in Nagorno-Karabakh underscore the deep concerns that I have long had about providing US assistance to Azerbaijan,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Robert Menendez (D-NJ), who had requested the report. “This report finds that, for several years, the State Department consistently failed to provide sufficient details about the quantity of assistance to Azerbaijan, the status of the military balance, and the impact of the assistance on peace negotiations. These findings are further proof that the status quo is unacceptable, and we must exercise additional scrutiny over the US government’s ongoing provision of assistance to Azerbaijan. In the coming weeks, I will be renewing my efforts for the State Department to reconsider any future planned assistance to Azerbaijan, respect Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, and improve its reporting to Congress in the future.”
“This report – prepared by our nation’s highest government watchdog – shines a spotlight on a dark corner of US policy, confirming what we have always known – that the reckless US military aid program to Azerbaijan has been irresponsibly implemented and inadequately reported, in violation of US law,” said ANCA executive director Aram Hamparian. “The oil-rich, racist and openly aggressive Aliyev regime does not need and surely does not deserve a single dollar from US taxpayers. President Biden must act on this report by immediately revoking his Section 907 waiver – fully enforcing this longstanding provision of US law.”
The GAO report confirmed that the Departments of State, Defense (DOD), and Energy and the US Agency for International Development provided about $808 million in US aid to Azerbaijan in fiscal years 2002 through 2020, about $164 million of which (20 percent) was for security assistance pursuant to the Section 907 waiver.
“In fiscal years 2014 through 2021, State’s reporting to Congress did not address some required elements, such as the impact of proposed assistance on the military balance between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” asserts the GAO report. “State’s 2021 guidance to agencies did not provide detailed instructions about the information required for its reporting to Congress. Unless State takes steps to ensure its reporting addresses all required elements, Congress may lack important information about US assistance to the government of Azerbaijan.”
The GAO report went further, to explain that State and DOD, from fiscal year 2014 to 2020, “did not document how they determined that their programs would not be used for offensive purposes against Armenia.” While program-level considerations of the waiver provision are not statutorily required, documenting such considerations would help ensure State’s access to quality information to support its certification of the waiver extension and its related reporting to Congress, explains the report.
Adopted in 1992, Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act restricts US assistance to Azerbaijan until that country takes demonstrable steps to end its aggression and lift its blockades against Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh). In 2002, the President was given waiver authority of Section 907, if they determined and certified that, among other items, providing US assistance will not “undermine or hamper ongoing efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan or be used for offensive purposes against Armenia.” Section 907 has been waived annually since then.
The waiver authority requires that the State submit a report to appropriate congressional committees within 60 days of exercising the waiver, specifying (1) the nature and quantity of all training and assistance provided to the government of Azerbaijan pursuant to the waiver, (2) the status of the military balance between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the impact of US assistance on that balance, and (3) the status of negotiations for a peaceful settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the impact of the US assistance on those negotiations. The statute also requires consultation with the Committees on Appropriations prior to the provision of assistance made available pursuant to the waiver.
You got the name right in the title, but not in the body… the GAO hasn’t been “the Govmt Accounting Office” for over a decade! That august body is, in face, “the GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE!” Thank you, my husband proudly worked there for 40 years! And this report is an example of the excellent, unbiased work that they have always done…whatever they were called!