Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

An anti-Azerbaijan legislation submitted to the U.S. Congress caused the outrage of the Azerbaijani officials.

The bill sent to the U.S. Congress by the Helsinki Commission, acting under Chris Smith’s chairmanship on December 16 was sharply criticized at the plenary session of the Azerbaijani parliament on December 18.

MPs assessed this legislation, titled as the Azerbaijan Democracy Act of 2015, as a step taken to harm the Azerbaijani-U.S. relations.

“Azerbaijan and the United States established full cooperation, which is valuable to both countries and plays an important role in the stability of the region. Unfortunately, under the influence of certain forces, some U.S. officials want to harm this cooperation,” MP Sahib Aliyev said noting that such actions primarily are contrary to the interests of the U.S. itself.

MP Fazail Agamali, in turn, said the essence of the bill indicates that Congressman Smith is influenced by the Armenian lobby.

Agamali advised to approve such a bill in relation to Armenia, where human rights are regularly violated.

Samad Seyidov, the head of parliament’s committee on international relations and inter-parliamentary relations believes that Smith’s bill pursues provocative goals.

"The bill is a veiled provocation against Azerbaijan. They expect from us aggressive, misguided reaction. But we will not succumb to this provocation, as we understand that this is the position of a certain group of people, not the United States as a whole," Seyidov underlined.

Ogtay Asadov, the speaker of the Azerbaijani parliament ruled out the approval of the bill of anti-Azerbaijani nature in the Congress.

Noting that there are enough friends of Azerbaijan in the U.S. Congress, he said “one can hardly expect them to approve the recently submitted anti-Azerbaijani project.”

Asadov also noted that earlier, Smith was a member of the Democratic Party, and then he became a member of the Republican Party. “At present, he is a member of the Armenian diaspora and works for this diaspora.”

The anti-Azerbaijan legislation of Smith would deny U.S. visas to senior Azerbaijani officials in case of approval.

Since Azerbaijan's emergence as an independent nation in 1991, the U.S.-Azerbaijan relationship has evolved into a strategic partnership based on mutual interests and common values. Experts say such acts would waste efforts on expanding cooperation between the strategic partners.

Bahar Muradova, parliament’s vice-speaker said it is a pity that there are people who are distinguished by their love for Armenians among high officials of the U.S. and even in the Congress itself.

She told Trend that the main focus of their policy is to serve the interests of the Armenians, using Azerbaijan.

Muradova went on to say that unfortunately, Smith, as the head of the commission, for all these years hasn’t taken the initiative to ban visits of “leaders” of the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh to the U.S., which were received in the Congress and other state structures.

--

Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz