Visit to Yerevan: Pelosi supports Armenians against Baku
US House of Representatives speaker on mission after fresh clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Karabakh. Washington's role in mediating the cease-fire. Many Armenians call for abandonment of Russian-led Csto for NATO partnership.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - Nancy Pelosi paid a visit to Armenia immediately after the violent clashes with Azerbaijan in the disputed areas of Nagorno Karabakh. The speaker of the US House of Representatives condemned the attacks in Baku as an aggression against the sovereignty of Armenia, "a country that has great significance for us in the US," she explained in her meeting with Yerevan National Assembly representative Allen Simonyan.
The United States is co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group for Peace Agreements, and intends to do everything to ensure that the conflict is not resolved by military action, as Pelosi recalled: 'I hope that it will be possible to make progress through negotiations, and we will continue to uphold Armenia's territorial integrity against all those who endanger it'. The fragile truce signed on 14 September is largely thanks to Washington's mediation.
Pelosi then commented on social media that 'our founders in 1787 preferred democracy to autocracy, and from generation to generation we have defended and cherished their choice. This is what we do today, from the US to Ukraine, Taiwan, Armenia, all countries that are facing this choice... The decision in this case is up to Armenia, but we declare our readiness'.
Asked whether the US is also willing to provide military support to Yerevan, Pelosi did not respond directly, merely saying that 'the importance of our visit lies in being here to listen, to understand what can be done and what is expected of us, and we have discussed many economic and security issues'. She was also asked why the US has not issued sanctions against Azerbaijani President Aliev, and the speaker assured that 'we will continue to work on these issues, we invited Armenia to the summit of democratic countries and we condemned the Armenian genocide, we will see what decisions we make on this matter'.
Pelosi's visit was greeted in Yerevan by groups of demonstrators calling for Armenia's exit from Csto, the Russian-obedient 'Eurasian NATO', to place itself under American protection as Mnna, 'Mayor non-NATO ally', with a group of observers being sent to protect the Armenian territories under attack. The head of the Csto peace mission on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border himself, Anatolij Sidorov, admitted that 'both in these territories and on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan borders, many difficulties have arisen for our mediation efforts'. Csto secretary Stanislav Zas will be arriving in Armenia in the coming days to figure out what to do at this juncture.
The 82-year-old Italian-American congresswoman from California, who was elected to Congress 35 years ago, has been in the front row at the inauguration of seven US presidents, from Reagan and G.W. Bush to Trump and Biden, and today appears as the most influential woman in US politics. Having gone 'from the kitchen to politics', as she herself has repeatedly reminded us, she now represents the rights of women and the weakest in the face of the arrogance of the powerful all over the world, as was also the case with her recent trip to Taiwan, which aroused the ire of Beijing.
In spite of her long career and advanced age, Pelosi says she has no intention of retiring from public activity, and as it was written in her biography, 'she won't even tell her husband when she will retire'.
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