Dollars and faces behind Armenian revanchism ANCA continues to stir the waters

It has officially begun. With just over ten months until Armenia’s parliamentary elections and the planned referendum on constitutional amendments, Armenian revanchists are wasting no time. They have launched new campaigns in Western legislative bodies aimed at blocking the path to comprehensive peace between Baku and Yerevan.

Recent media reports indicate that a “conference” is planned in the French National Assembly on the topic: “Artsakh /Nagorno-Karabakh/: two years after the ethnic cleansing.” Meanwhile, Armenian media reported that the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee recently adopted an amendment on sanctions for the State Department. The measure, led by Congressman Gabe Amo and supported by the Armenian Assembly of America (ANCA), aims to influence U.S. policy regarding the region.

According to the Armenian National Committee of America’s ( ANCA) Facebook page, the amendment “provides for  the release of Armenian hostages, and the protection of our Christian holy sites.”

First, it should be noted that ANCA serves as one of the main conduits of Armenian interests in the U.S. Congress and is deliberately involved in lobbying American congressmen. This disreputable activity intensified after Armenia’s defeat in the Second Karabakh War in 2020 and Azerbaijan’s restoration of its territorial integrity and sovereignty in September 2023 through the one-day counterterrorism operation carried out in the Karabakh economic region.

Thus, in the post-conflict period in the region, the U.S. Congress—under the influence of corrupt congressmen generously supported by ANCA—continues a series of attempts to smear Azerbaijan through pro-Armenian resolutions and the discussion of issues that are, in the strictest sense, phantom concerns.

In 2024, for example, ANCA organised a two-day session in the U.S. Congress of provocative nature titled “Countering Genocide: Ensuring a Safe and Secure Right of Return for Artsakh’s Armenians”, in which loyalists of global Armenian interests, including Frank Pallone, Ed Markey, and the aforementioned Gabe Amo, participated.

And in order to justify the funds from their Armenian sponsors, these congressmen once again voiced pro-Armenian narratives “about the rights of Karabakh Armenians to safe return, providing Armenia with military aid, halting U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan, and holding Baku accountable for alleged war crimes.”

It is therefore entirely clear that anti-Azerbaijani propaganda in the U.S. Congress, the French National Assembly, and the European Parliament is not driven by any particular love or endless sympathy for Armenians, but solely by the heavily filled wallets of the Armenian lobby.

The hostile policies of the leadership of several Western countries also played a significant role in this campaign against Azerbaijan. President Ilham Aliyev has spoken about this numerous times.

"Sixty pro-Armenian members of the U.S. Congress have appealed to the American government to impose new sanctions on Azerbaijan. This morning, I skimmed through that appeal; it is a vile appeal and cannot influence our will. However, what does it show? The policy of hostility against us does not stop," the president said in October 2024 during a meeting with residents of Jabrayil. Notably, at that time the pro-Armenian Biden administration was in power in the United States.

However, even with the arrival of the Trump administration, ANCA did not calm down and continued to push its agenda, enlisting, as usual, paid lawmakers in the process. In March 2025, for example, 60 members of the U.S. House of Representatives urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to invoke Section 907 and halt military assistance to Azerbaijan. At that time, the central office of the Hai Tahd bureau proudly announced that the bipartisan letter addressed to the Secretary of State was led by Congressmen Mike Lawler, Frank Pallone, Gus Bilirakis, and Gabe Amo.

It seems that this intense lobbying activity by the Armenian diaspora around Section 907 was driven by fears that Donald Trump might repeal it. As subsequent events showed, they were not mistaken.

After the historic Washington meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia with the U.S. President on August 8 of this year, the official government journal Federal Register published the text of Donald Trump’s memorandum repealing Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which had restricted U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan.

One can easily imagine the dismay of Armenian revanchists and advocates of Armenian interests in Congress, as this decisive action by the White House not only nullified their efforts but also confirmed Azerbaijan’s authority as a leading regional player in the South Caucasus, cooperation with whom is now a priority for the current U.S. administration.

Returning to the “recent escapade” of the pro-Armenian congressmen, it should first be noted that the issue of Armenian citizens accused of war crimes is an internal matter for Azerbaijan, and any external interference is therefore unacceptable for Baku.

Furthermore, Azerbaijan possesses concrete evidence, including video materials, confirming the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural and religious heritage by Armenia during the period of occupation. In addition, this has been directly observed by international experts, researchers, foreign journalists, and members of the diplomatic corps accredited in Azerbaijan who visited Karabakh and East Zangezur after their liberation.

Now, regarding the “safe return of Armenians from Artsakh.” First, let us start with the fact that there is no “Artsakh” and it has never existed. However, the ordinary Armenian residents of Karabakh were offered by official Baku the opportunity to integrate into Azerbaijani society. The only requirement for this was to accept Azerbaijani citizenship and abide by the laws of the Azerbaijani state. In return, they would have been granted all the rights enjoyed by holders of passports bearing the emblem of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Instead, they chose to leave, which was their voluntary decision. This is documented in the UN mission report, which confirms that there was no persecution of Armenians or “ethnic cleansing” against them—the people who left Karabakh did so of their own free will. This stands in contrast to Azerbaijanis who were forced to leave their homes in Armenia in the late 1980s under threat of murder.

So perhaps, to begin with, the discussion should focus on the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Armenia?!

It is clear that all reasonable, fact-based arguments are being hit with the “ignore” button by the adherents of “Miatsum”, just as they did with the four UN Security Council resolutions demanding the immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the then-occupied territories of Azerbaijan. It is also entirely obvious that all these narratives about the “endless suffering of Armenians” will continue to be propagated with the support of ANCA and similar organisations, both in Congress and on other international platforms.

However, in their endless drive to destroy rather than build, these entrenched supporters in the U.S. of the racist ideology of the second President of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan—who preaches the “genetic incompatibility of Armenians and Azerbaijanis”—should not forget that the White House policy assigns a special role to Azerbaijan. And they must certainly remember the sorry state of their own position.