Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, who is in Armenia on an official visit, on 18 September strongly condemned “Azerbaijan’s illegal attacks” on Armenia, reported “Armenpress”.
Pelosi gave a joint press conference with Alen Simonyan, President of the National Assembly of Armenia.
During the press conference, Pelosi declared the following: “Armenia is of great importance to us, and we strongly condemn Azerbaijan’s deadly attacks on Armenia’s borders.” She reaffirmed the United States’ position within the OSCE Minsk Group that the crisis cannot have a military solution.
“We continue to follow the events. We want to see a peaceful and lasting negotiated solution to the Artsakh crisis,” declared Pelosi.
Responding to a question regarding the CSTO, she said: “We have nothing to say regarding the CSTO; we understand that Armenia, together with Russia, is part of that organisation. However, we say the following: we are concerned about Armenia’s security situation and want to support Armenia as much as possible in this regard.”
Frank Pallone, Chairman of the United States House Committee on Energy and Commerce, responding in turn to a journalist’s question, said: “We understand that Armenia is part of a security organisation with Russia. We say nothing about that, but we are very concerned about Armenia’s security and are trying to understand what the United States can do without touching upon that military organisation,” noted Pallone.
“In the democratic world, we consider Armenia’s democracy very important. And as Mr. Pallone said, we have nothing to say about Armenia’s communications within those structures. However, Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are important issues for us, and we want to have our active support in that direction. Of course, Armenia makes that decision, and we can speak of our readiness.”
“The House of Representatives has already advanced a resolution through which we condemn Azerbaijan’s actions,” declared House member Jackie Speier, and responding to a question regarding the “Zangezur corridor,” she stated: “I hope that we will move forward with that resolution. As for our commitment, we will continue to support Armenia’s territorial integrity and will oppose any change to Armenia’s borders.”
It should be noted that Congressman Pallone had previously stated on “Twitter” that, together with other congressional members, he had introduced a resolution condemning Azerbaijan’s attack. “The resolution calls for the immediate cessation of any assistance provided to Azerbaijan and affirms the House of Representatives’ support for Armenia. We must send a strong message that Aliyev’s attack is unacceptable,” wrote Pallone.
Responding to the question of whether the United States is ready to provide military support to Armenia, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives said that they are here to understand what expectations Yerevan has of Washington.
“Our visit is also important in that we are here to listen, to understand what we can do, what can be expected of us. During our meeting today we spoke about economic and security issues; the question of Armenia joining the ‘Millennium Challenge’ programme was raised, and we also touched upon our cooperation on defence matters. We are here to listen, to understand what expectations and desires there are,” declared Nancy Pelosi.
