US will not tolerate ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Nagorno-Karabakh, State Department official says

By Mane Berikyan

In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Thursday on the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, a high-ranking U.S. State Department official said the United States will not tolerate any attempts to “ethnically cleanse” Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh. 

Yuri Kim, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, was called before the Committee to provide testimony on the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis. 

She called the current situation “unacceptable” for the United States, reiterating the “non-negotiable” U.S. position that the Lachin corridor, the sole overland route connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the rest of the word, “must open now.”

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The hearing was initiated by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is chaired by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

In his opening remarks, Menendez referenced the opinion penned by former International Criminal Court prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo calling the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh an apparent “genocide.” 

Also read: US May Be Complicit in Karabakh Genocide, Ex-ICC Prosecutor Warns Congressmen

“Talk is worthless when one participant in those talks is carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing,” he said, accusing Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev of attempting to “either coerce the people of Artsakh into political submission or starve them to death.”

Menendez added that by allowing Azerbaijan to continue violating the Nov. 9, 2020 ceasefire, which entails that Russian peacekeepers should monitor the Lachin corridor, the United States has “only emboldened Aliyev.”

Other members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee present at the hearing included Senators Jim Risch (R-ID), Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Christopher Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Pete Ricketts (R-NE).

Several Senators echoed Menendez’s remarks that the United States needs to take stronger action to curtail Azerbaijan and prevent the ethnic cleansing of Amenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, underscoring the urgency of the humanitarian crisis in the region.