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Rep. Frank R. Wolf

Mr. Speaker, in 1994 I was part of a delegation, organized by Christian Solidarity International, that visited Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

In Nagorno-Karabakh, I saw horrible conditions: doctors operating without anesthesia using only a stiff dose of cognac; land mines planted by the retreating Azeri army which resulted in injury and amputation of limbs of women and children as well as soldiers and people living in hazardous partially bombed-out apartment buildings in the cities and in lean-tos among the debris of demolished villages.

Upon my return, I urged Congress not to forget the long-suffering people of Nagorno-Karabakh. And I rise today to do the same.

In 1921, Joseph Stalin, then the comissar for nationality affairs in the Transcaucasia Bureau of the Communist Party, declared Nagorno-Karabakh to be an autonomous region controlled by Azerbaijan as part of his divide and rule strategy. Historically, the majority of the population in Nagorno-Karabakh has been Armenian and the people have always had close ethnic, religious and familial ties with Armenia.

In the years leading to the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Karabakh Armenians petitioned in 1987 for inclusion of Nagorno-Karabakh in the state of Armenia. In 1991, they petitioned for independent state status. To date, the situation remains unresolved.

Shortly after the break-up of the Soviet Union, Armenians in Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh endured great hardship, including pogroms in Sumgait (February 1998), in Kirovabad (November 1988) and in Baku (January 1990).

A January 19, 1990, New York Times article described the Baku pogrom as a ``massacre.'' That same article also pointed to the violence in 1988, when, ``armed Azerbaijanis rampaged through the town of Sumgait and slaughtered 32 people, mostly Armenians.''

These horrific acts of targeted violence are as deplorable today as they were more than two decades ago. Tragically, tensions remain high in the region. A January 16 Bloomberg article reported that, ``Azerbaijan is buying up modern weaponry to be able to regain control of the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region quickly and with few losses should peace talks with neighboring Armenia fail, President Ilham Aliyev said.''

Such acts of aggression would have a devastating impact. It is critical that the U.S. works toward a lasting, peaceful and democratic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.