Senators Portantino, Wilk and Senate Select Committee Members Urge Biden Administration to Increase Support for Displaced Armenians of Artsakh and Demand Release of Artsakh POWs
For Immediate Release: July 26, 2024
Contact: Lerna Shirinian, (818) 409-0400
Senators Portantino, Wilk and Senate Select Committee Members Urge Biden Administration to Increase Support for Displaced Armenians of Artsakh and Demand Release of Artsakh POWs
Sacramento, CA – In a letter to the White House, Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D – Burbank), Senator Scott Wilk, and other members of the Select Committee on California, Armenia, and Artsakh Mutual Trade, Art, and Cultural Exchange, urged the Biden administration to increase its support for the forcibly displaced indigenous Armenians of Artsakh and to demand the immediate release Armenian POWs, civilians, and government leaders illegally held captive by Azerbaijan.
“It is our responsibility to uphold democratic values and carry out our commitment to human rights,” stated Senator Portantino. “By not taking action to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its war crimes, Aliyev will continue to implement his genocidal agenda. Concrete steps have yet to be taken to address the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh Armenians and the continued illegal detention of Artsakh POWs, civilians, and leaders. With this letter, we urge the Biden Administration to take a leadership role in preventing further atrocities and ensuring the security of Armenia and its people.”
The letter highlights the ongoing and imminent threats that Armenia faces from the autocratic and genocidal Aliyev regime and asks that decisive action be taken to hold Azerbaijan accountable for its despicable actions.
In September 2020, Azerbaijan launched a war of territorial expansion against the Armenians of Artsakh that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of over 70 percent of Artsakh territory. Azerbaijan perpetrated widely documented human rights abuses, including the unlawful targeting of schools, homes, hospitals, and churches with prohibited weapons. For more than eight months, Azerbaijan held 120,000 people under a blockade, in isolation from food, water, medical supplies, fuel, electricity, and other basic needs. Following the illegal blockade, the Armenians of Artsakh endured a large-scale assault by the genocidal Aliyev regime in September 2023, resulting in the forced exodus of more than 100,000 people from their ancestral lands.
Currently, dozens of Armenian prisoners remain in Azerbaijani custody, with over 80 Armenian soldiers and civilians still missing. Additionally, Azerbaijan has held eight former military and political leaders of Artsakh captive since September 2023. According to the Third Geneva Convention, to which Azerbaijan is a signatory, the release of POWs and captured civilians upon the cessation of hostilities is required. Azerbaijan has still not fulfilled its international legal obligations.
"Our advocates are grateful to Senator Portantino and his colleagues for calling on the Biden administration to demand the release of Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan, sanction the genocidal authoritarian Aliyev regime, and provide humanitarian aid for the Armenians of Artsakh," said David Ojakian, Western Region Director for the Armenian Assembly of America.
Earlier this year, the Senator lead efforts to introduce Senate Joint Resolution 11, which called on the Biden Administration to urge Azerbaijan to immediately return all Armenian POWs, hostages, and other detained persons. It also called on President Biden to impose Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act violations on Azerbaijan for the illegal detention, torture, and extrajudicial killing of Armenian POWs and hostages. SJR 11 urged the suspension of all United States military and economic assistance to Azerbaijan and to collaborate with the international community to ensure the protection and preservation of Armenian cultural heritage sites now under Azerbaijani control.
The issue is particularly personal for Senator Portantino, as several of those being held are friends and associates of his. Senator Portantino has hosted former Artsakh Foreign Minister and Advisor to the President David Babayan in Glendale. The former minister is one of the government officials being illegally held by Azerbaijan. Senator Portantino was invited to go to Artsakh after the 44-day war by the Human Rights Ombudsman Artak Beglaryan.
Senator Portantino chairs the Senate Select Committee on California, Armenia, and Artsakh Mutual Trade, Art, and Cultural Exchange, which was first established in 2017 at the request of Senator Portantino to expand business opportunities through trade, economic development, cultural awareness, and education between California, Armenia, and Artsakh. California has the largest population of Armenian Americans in the country, with the 25th Senate District having the largest concentration. In 2014, the California State Legislature adopted AJR 32, which recognized the Republic of Artsakh as a free and independent nation.
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