Harris backs safe return of Karabakh Armenians

Harris backs safe return of Karabakh Armenians

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said that Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population displaced by last year’s Azerbaijani offensive has a legitimate right to “return safely” to its homeland, RFE/RL’s Armenian service reports.

Harris also pledged to “continue to support Armenia” when she congratulated the Armenian community in the United States on the South Caucasus country’s Independence Day marked on September 21.

“I remain committed to a lasting peace between Armenia and its neighbors that respects sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity,” she said in a statement publicized by the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) on Tuesday. “The right for Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh to return safely to their homes is vital to restoring dignity to the Armenian people and stability to the region.”

Harris did not say what she will do in support of that right if she wins next month’s U.S. presidential election.

More than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians, the region’s virtually entire remaining population, fled to Armenia in the space of a week following Azerbaijan’s September 2023 assault condemned by the U.S. and the European Union. Despite that condemnation, the administration of President Joe Biden did not impose sanctions on Baku or Azerbaijani officials.

Visiting Armenia in July, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Samantha Power, said Washington is still looking into the exodus of the Karabakh Armenians to determine whether it was the result of ethnic cleansing.

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