Karabakh: U.S. State Department "revised" its mistake in annual report of human rights

PanARMENIAN.Net - The U.S. Department of State has revised the mistaken assertion, within the Armenia section of its recently released annual human rights report, that, "Armenia continues to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories," the PanARMENIAN.Net was told in the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). The amended language, released this week, has been posted on the Department's website. It reads as follows: "Armenian forces occupy large portions of Azerbaijan territory adjacent to Nagorno Karabakh. Armenian officials maintain that they "do not occupy" Nagorno Karabakh itself." The Azerbaijan section, which included nearly identical language, has yet to be revised.



"We take note of the fact that the State Department has responded to our concern that the report's mischaracterization of Nagorno Karabakh's status would be detrimental to the U.S. government's role as an impartial mediator of the Minsk Group negotiations. We remain concerned that the amended text continues to fall short of accurately describing the situation, as well as by the fact that the Azerbaijan section of the report continues to make incorrect assertions, thus making its text inconsistent with the State Department's own revision of the Armenia section," ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian said.



ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian, in an April 3, 2007 letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, expressed concerns that, "such statements fundamentally misrepresent the well-documented reality in the region, contradict the Department's previous human rights reports, and undermine the credibility of the United States as an impartial arbiter destined to a leadership role in the OSCE Minsk Group peace process." "These unprecedented assertions are both factually inaccurate and counter-productive to our government's aim of reaching a durable resolution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. To say that Nagorno Karabakh is an Azerbaijani territory and that Armenia occupies Nagorno Karabakh and other territories is to ignore the very fundamentals of this conflict. These statements only serve to send the wrong message to the Azerbaijani side and further complicate the peace negotiations," Ken Hachikian said.