Member of the House of Representatives from New York.
Yvette Clark: “Baku is a city of the 21st century, and Azerbaijan — actively developing democratic partner of the USA in the region of South Caucasus”.
Source: 1news.az
PHOTOS
SOURCES AND PRESS
Congressmen of the USA emphasize the importance of Azerbaijan
The third Azerbaijani-American congress, organized in Washington by the efforts of Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan (AFAZ) was marked by participation in the event of 40 congressmen and 5 senators of the USA.
As reports 1news.az with reference to the Haberler.com portal, Nancy Pelosi, the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, made a speech at the gala evening which ended the two-day event. She noted that the rapprochement of people is the responsibility of every politician. At the same time, the friendly relations between the heads of state are of special importance.
Javier Beserra, Congressman-democrat from California, expressed appreciation to the holding of the event, having emphasized that he is a friend of the Azerbaijani people. “It is necessary to do everything to make friendship between our countries even more developed”, he told.
In his turn André Carson, U.S. Representative for Indiana’s 7 th congressional district, emphasized that Azerbaijan is of special importance not only in the context of safety in regional scale, it is also very important in the issue of the US security. A. Carson also noted the importance of development of economic partnership between the USA and Azerbaijan.
Yvette Clark, Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from New York, shared her impressions about her visit to Baku.
“Baku is a city of the 21st century, and Azerbaijan — actively developing, democratic partner of the USA in the region of South Caucasus”, she noted.
Source: 1news.az
The Washington Post: The oil company of Azerbaijan secretly financed the American congressmen in 2013
The state oil company of Azerbaijan in 2013 secretly financed all expenses connected with a trip on a conference in Baku of ten Congressmen and 32 employees of its staff. This was reported by The Washington Post, referring to the confidential report of the department of the Congress on ethics which was at its disposal. The newspaper also reported that the conference was attended by three former high-ranking assistants of Obama: Robert Gibbs, Jim Messina and David Plaf.
Legislators and their employees received hundreds of thousands of dollars in a form of payment for travel and gifts: silk scarves, crystal tea sets and the Azerbaijani carpets costing from 2500 to 10 000 dollars, the publication told with reference to the report. Only expenses of air tickets for legislators, and in some cases their spouses, according to the cited documents, amounted to about 113 thousand dollars.
Authors of the 70-page report suggest that the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) transferred 750 thousand dollars to non-profit organizations to the USA to hide the source of financing of the conference in the former Soviet republic. These NPOs filed false documents to Congress, that they sponsored for the conference, Washington Post reports.
The results of the investigation were transferred to the ethics committee of the House of Representatives for the investigation of possible violations of regulations of the Congress and federal laws prohibiting to the governments of foreign countries to influence the American policy.
The SOCAR issued the statement in which it said that it didn’t make a secret of the fact that it supported holding of the conference, and charged NGOs that they didn’t file the relevant documents on disclosure of information, Washington Post writes.
The American-Azerbaijani congress “A glimpse to the future” took place on May 28-29, 2013, the newspaper writes. Within the previous year the SOCAR and several large energy companies tried to obtain for themselves an exception of the American economic sanctions against Iran in the regard to the construction of a gas pipeline in the Caspian Sea worth 28 billion dollars.
The department of the Congress of ethics is an independent investigating body of the House of Representatives.
According to the newspaper, members of the House of Representatives Jim Bridenstayn, Ivette Clark, Danny Davies, Ruben Inokhosa, Sheila Jackson Li, Leonard Lens, Michel Lukhan Grisham, Gregory Miks and Ted Poe, and also the former congressman Steve Stockmann participated in the trip, Armenia Today tells.
In May, 2012 the non-profit organization “European Stability Initiative” published a scandalous report “Caviar diplomacy”. The report says that friendly members of the Council of Europe of Azerbaijan close eyes to human rights violations, in return receiving sturgeon caviar, silk carpets, gold and silver jewellery and other rich gifts from Baku.
In the work the chronology and mechanisms of bribery of deputies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is in details stated by the Azerbaijan authorities. In the research, in particular, it is said that distribution of generous gifts is a part of the Azerbaijani traditions, as well as expectation that the rendered generosity will be repaid someday.
“1 kg of caviar costs about 1300-1400 euro. Each of our friends in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe during each session, 4 times a year, receives at least 0,4-0,6 kg of caviar. The main friends of the country receiving caviar are 10-12 people. Another 3-4 people in the secretariat. During each session of PACE, at least, caviar is given. But during the visits to Baku also other things are given much. Many deputies are regularly invited to Azerbaijan, and their visits are generously paid.
In a regular year at least 30-40 people, and some of them repeatedly are invited. Parliamentarians are invited to conferences, events, summer vacation in Azerbaijan. It is a real vacation, with a lot of expensive gifts, generally expensive silk carpets, gold and silver products, drinks, caviar and money. A usual gift in Baku is 2 kg of caviar” declared then the source of analytical center.