However, the current smear campaign is more intense compared to previous years. This is because the forces behind this campaign cannot digest the fact that our country defeated Armenia’s occupying army and restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty. It is regrettable that the United States is among these forces,” Gaya Mammadov, Member of the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan (Parliament), told AZERTAC.

   “First of all, let us note that the government and parliament of Azerbaijan have always placed great importance on bilateral relations with the US and have acted constructively. Most of the positive developments in bilateral relations have been achieved thanks to the efforts of the Azerbaijani side.

   At the same time, we should point out that from the first days of our independence, the US, through its Congress, has consistently taken harmful steps against our country. This campaign intensified after Azerbaijan restored its sovereignty. In the past year alone, 16 legislative initiatives against Azerbaijan have been introduced in Congress. All of them contradict international law and the UN Charter.

    The letter sent by a group of US senators and congressmen to the US Secretary of State last week was the final straw that exhausted the patience of Azerbaijan. This issue has been addressed at the level of our country’s leadership, and we, a group of deputies of the Milli Majlis, have submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to reconsider relations with the US.

   I would particularly like to emphasize one issue that President Ilham Aliyev highlighted in his speech in Jabrayil last week: the fact that the letter sent from Congress to Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was actually written in the State Department.

   Everyone should know that from the amendment made to the «Freedom Support Act» in 1992 (Section 907) to the letter sent to the Secretary of State last week, the author of all anti-Azerbaijani initiatives put forward in Congress has been the US government itself. No one believes in excuses like the “Armenian lobby” or “different positions of Congress and the government” anymore. This was, of course, well known long ago. However, we refrained from mentioning it out of courtesy. Now, the Azerbaijani public knows all of this,” the MP emphasized.

   “I would like to highlight one action by the US government that dealt a major blow to bilateral cooperation. This is the US suspension of Section 907 when it needed Azerbaijan for operations in Afghanistan in 2001 and its reactivation as soon as those operations ended. Let us also note that although the US President had the authority, he refused to suspend the sanctions against our country under Section 907 last year.

   It is completely unacceptable for the US, which remained indifferent for decades to the forced expulsion, massacres, and violation of the return rights of nearly one million Azerbaijanis by Armenia, to now start raising concerns on humanitarian and human rights law against our country under false pretenses.

   All of this has severely undermined mutual trust and erased many achievements in bilateral cooperation that had been attained over decades.

   The continuous pressure from the US side, which has persisted since the first days of our independence, is not only directed against our country’s leadership and political system but also against the Azerbaijani people as a whole, its political independence, and its sovereignty.

   All these pressure and smear campaigns are futile. They can have no other effect than damaging bilateral relations. Maintaining bilateral relations cannot be achieved through the efforts of one side alone. We call on our partners in the US to abandon biased and harmful approaches and choose the path of dialogue and cooperation in the common interests of both countries,” Gaya Mammadov added.

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