The Hill newspaper has posted an article about Azerbaijan and the Khojaly genocide.

Called “Looking for another friend in the greater Middle East”, the article was written by political analyst Raoul Lowery Contreras.

“American interests around the world are hard to define sometimes. The choices: To retrench to American borders with Canada and Mexico and ignore the world, its problems and commerce, as suggested by one Republican candidate for president (Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky); or, to involve ourselves in the world, as advocated by another potential Republican candidate for president (Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida),” says the article.

Mr Contreras says: “Azerbaijan is 70 percent Shiite Muslim. The South Caucasus country borders Russia on the north; Iran on the south; Armenia, Georgia and Turkey on the west. He says Azerbaijan “has a stellar record of treating its 20,000 to 30,000 Jews well since independence (1991)”.

“Because it is a true friend and major oil and natural gas producer for Israel and the West, and has been for over a century...”

“It supplies Israel with 50 percent of its oil needs and buys most of its weaponry from it. The United States won`t sell weapons to it because of its ongoing conflict with next-door Armenia, which seized almost 20 percent of Azeri territory in 1992.”

The article says that twenty-three years ago, Armenian soldiers attacked an army-less newly independent Azerbaijan and seized a large portion of the country. “Armenia expelled almost 1 million Azeris from their homes in the conquered territory while committing a massacre of an entire Azeri community in the town of Khojaly.”

“Eyewitness American and European journalists described the bloody scene of massacre littered with disfigured bodies of men, women and children in dispatches published at the time. One word is applicable in this case: genocide.”

“Azerbaijan wants to be friends with the United States like it is with Israel. Defying any logic, the Obama administration prefers not to deal with Israel`s friend,” says Mr Contreras.

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