The Senate voted 100-0 last week in a rare moment of widespread bipartisanship to cut off aid to Azerbaijan for the next two years amid fears the country may invade neighboring Armenia soon.
According to Defense News, senators passed the Armenian Protection Act by unanimous consent on Wednesday. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) introduced the legislation, which prevents President Joe Biden from issuing a waiver in fiscal years 2024 and 2025 in order to continue providing security assistance to Azerbaijan.
The bill’s passage comes after more than 100,000 Armenians left the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region as a result of an Azerbaijani siege that has lasted more than nine months. Armenia has accused Azerbaijan of ethnic cleansing.
“We must send a strong message and show our partners around the world that America will enforce the conditions that we attach to military aid,” Peters, who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “If we do not take action when countries willfully ignore the terms of our agreements with them, our agreements will become effectively meaningless and toothless.”
In mid-October, Politico reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken advised a small group of lawmakers that officials were tracking the possibility that Azerbaijan was preparing to invade its neighbor in the coming weeks.
The outlet added:
Azerbaijiani President Ilham Aliyev has previously called on Armenia to open a “corridor” along its southern border, linking mainland Azerbaijan to an exclave that borders Turkey and Iran. Aliyev has threatened to solve the issue “by force.”
In an Oct. 3 phone call, lawmakers pressed Blinken on possible measures against Aliyev in response to his country’s invasion of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in September, the people said, who were granted anonymity to discuss the sensitive call.
