ArmInfo.The bill "On National Defense", signed by the US President on December 28, among other things, was supposed to restore Section 907, which prohibits the provision of any assistance to Azerbaijan. International expert Suren Sargsyan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
"Our lobbyists tried to remove from the law an amendment adopted in 2001 by the Congress that allows the US President to bypass Section 907, adopted in 1991. However, unfortunately, they did not succeed. Thus, the law "On National Defense" confined itself to an appeal to the State Department and the Pentagon to prepare a report on the degree of involvement of Azerbaijan and Turkey in the 44-day war. Our lobbyists can use this circumstance exclusively for propaganda purposes, since the adopted law does not contain any punitive functions, "the expert emphasized.
Commenting on the support expressed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on December 15 for the process of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, Sargsyan stressed that through this process Washington, apparently, seeks to reduce the degree of Russian influence in the South Caucasus. In this light, he recalled that starting with Bush Sr., the settlement of the Armenian-Turkish relations has always been one of the priorities of Washington, which tried to do everything possible to open the borders between Armenia and Turkey.
In his opinion, this global approach of the United States with the aim of minimizing the influence of Russia and increasing its involvement in the region has remained practically unchanged since then. Accordingly, the United States continues to view the settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations from the point of view of reducing Russian influence in the South Caucasus. "The Turks, in turn, by normalizing relations with Armenia wish to normalize relations with the United States and, of course, close the issue of recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Ankara also uses the process of normalizing relations to block anti-Turkish resolutions in the US Congress. As you know, there are enough such projects in the Congress. As for the interests of Armenia in all this, first we need to understand what conditions, or rather preconditions, Turkey sets before us. If this is another rejection of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, rejection of Artsakh, then I do not see a special interest of Armenia in such a process of normalizing relations with Turkey, "the Americanist summed up.