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Elnur Enveroglu

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The groundless hearings of the US House of Representatives, which is the lower house of the US Congress, against Azerbaijan on November 15 attracted a lot of attention, but also dealt a crushing blow to Azerbaijan-US relations. Despite the fact that Azerbaijan-US relations have continued for more than 30 years, the pro-Armenian rhetoric of Congress members, as well as biased and unfair claims against Azerbaijanis, showed that the political structure is in an imperfect and unformed state.

It is no secret that today the US Congress and its upper house, the Senate, are completely caught in the clutches of the Armenian lobby. One side of this is the fact that some politicians in Congress are of Armenian descent or are closely connected with Armenian diaspora organizations from a financial point of view.

It is undeniable that the United States is a harbinger and defender of democracy. The work done in the prosperity of democracy by many US grant agencies like USAID, NED, and USDA in different countries is highly commendable. However, recently, the double standards used by heads of organisations, as well as US diplomatic representatives, towards Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, the situation in Garabagh, as well as the signing of the peace agreement, have significantly lowered the political charisma of the United States. Azerbaijan will never want to put a political ally like the USA on the same scale as France. Unfortunately, the latest decision of the United States to cancel the waiver of the section 907 amendment caused a shake-up of the US diplomacy in the South Caucasus.

As it is known today, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The talks between the parties focused mostly on the cold relations between Azerbaijan and the United States after the congressional hearings in the last few weeks. Thus, President Ilham Aliyev brought to attention Azerbaijan's position and will in diplomacy with full openness in political language.

The ongoing negotiations once again show that the US has retreated from its position and realised that it is useless to talk with Azerbaijan in the language of pressure and threats.

Yes, there is no doubt that Azerbaijan is firm and principled in its position and insists on defending this position until the end.

Blinken's approach also shows that both Congress and State Department representatives were in the wrong position.

In addition, in response to the wrong step of the US Congress, Azerbaijan on Thursday, November 16, refused to participate in normalization talks with Armenia that were planned in the United States this month also over Washington's biased position.

What was the mistake of Congress?

After the anti-terrorist measures of the Azerbaijani army in Garabagh on September 19, the intensification of hearings in the US Congress and the rhetoric against Azerbaijan were not accidental. Because that period coincided with the collapse of separatism. Also, the arrest of separatist members and the voluntary departure of Armenians living in Garabagh have already started to sound the alarm in the Congress.

The fact that no violence against civilians was recorded when the UN and EU representatives were familiar with the situation in Garabagh did not satisfy the politicians in the US Congress. In their speeches, the congressmen started discussing the so-called "genocide of 120,000 Armenians" in order to exaggerate the issue. It was embarrassing for US diplomacy to hypothesize such an ugly claim to the public as truth without any evidence or reference to facts. After that, proposals regarding the adoption of laws, such as the introduction of sanctions against Azerbaijan, clearly showed that the Congress was bought by the Armenian lobby.

Thus, no matter how much the political pressure of the United States targeted Azerbaijan, the truth still prevailed in the end. It is an undeniable fact that Azerbaijan restored that truth with its political and military power about three years ago. US-Azerbaijani diplomatic solidarity has once again demonstrated that the Armenian lobby's pressure on Azerbaijan through corrupt politicians is futile. Increasing the pressure mechanism against Azerbaijan from abroad is not in the interest of any state, on the contrary, it is harmful for them in terms of establishing political and economic perspectives related to the South Caucasus.

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Elnur Enveroglu is AzerNews’ Deputy Editor-in-Chief, follow him on @ElnurMammadli1

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