President Biden Recognized a Genocide, Only to Allow Another One to Continue | Opinion

"Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring."

These were the words uttered by President Joe Biden last year as part of his statement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day—April 24—which commemorates the deportation of Armenian intellectuals from Constantinople and marked the beginning of the first genocide of the 20th century.

By officially acknowledging the Armenian genocide, President Biden fulfilled his campaign promise to hold Turkey responsible for its role in the mass killings of more than 1.5 million Armenians alongside Assyrians and Greeks during the last days of the Ottoman Empire. While Armenian Americans welcomed this historic and long overdue statement, the spirit of its intent was short-lived as President Biden made a decision before the ink was even dry that has had widespread implications that is costing Armenian lives. He waived Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act that bans foreign aid to Azerbaijan days after recognizing the Armenian genocide, which was a harbinger of things to come.

In many ways, Biden recognized a genocide, only to allow another one to continue.

To fully understand why Armenian Americans feel slighted by President Biden despite his historic statement requires a look at the disparity in U.S. relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the wake of Baku's unprovoked war in 2020 against Armenians living in their ancestral homeland of Nagorno-Karabakh, known as Artsakh to Armenians.

For Armenian Americans, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war was a stark reminder of the Armenian genocide and how the world continues to turn a blind eye to their suffering. With the help of Turkey, Azerbaijan launched its unjustified war in an attempt to wipe out ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, while embarking on an ongoing campaign to erase their history and existence in the region by defacing and tearing down Armenian heritage and cultural sites including churches, monasteries and cemeteries that have existed for hundreds of years.

Violating all the norms of conventional warfare, Azerbaijan bombed civilian-populated areas and a maternity hospital in Stepanakert, the capital of Artsakh, with ballistic missiles and cluster munitions, which are internationally banned.

Azerbaijan also used weapons of mass destruction containing chemical agents, including white phosphorous munitions on civilian-populated areas which was a clear violation of international humanitarian laws, including the Geneva Conventions and Chemical Weapons Convention to which Azerbaijan is a signatory.

There is also video evidence of Azeri troops targeting and intimidating innocent Armenian civilians including two older men, who were beheaded by Azerbaijani forces after refusing to leave their villages.

Despite these atrocities which were on display for the entire world to see, President Biden has done nothing. If anything, he has doubled down on his insouciance when it comes to Azerbaijan's war crimes by calling for $164 million in U.S. military aid to Baku in the White House fiscal year 2023 budget proposal, while proposing a 47 percent cut in U.S. aid to Armenia ($24 million) and no specific dollar amount for Artsakh.

For a president who came into office claiming that human rights would be at the center of his foreign policy, this latest budget proposal is counterintuitive to those goals. Let's look at the facts. A frequent guest on a variety of human rights violations lists, Azerbaijan certainly doesn't disappoint. Human Rights Watch called human rights in Azerbaijan "appalling" in 2019 and during the 2020 conflict accused Azerbaijan of abusing and torturing Armenian prisoners of war by subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishment. According to Reporters Without Borders, Azerbaijan ranks 167 out of 180 countries on the Press Freedom Index. And a 2020 report by the U.S. State Department accused Baku of a wide variety of human rights violations including "unlawful or arbitrary killing," and "heavy restrictions on free expression, the press, and the internet."

Rewarding despots like Ilham Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan with foreign aid, sends the wrong message to the world.

What's more alarming is that President Biden's new budget proposal also comes at a time when Azerbaijan continues to violate the cease fire agreement with Armenia and has used the war in Ukraine as a distraction to foment new hostilities in the region and increase tension along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. There has been an escalation of violence in recent weeks with Azerbaijan firing on Armenian villages and reports of renewed gunfire with Armenian casualties.

And not to be outdone, Azerbaijan went so far as to cut off all gas and electricity to Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh while leaving more than 100,000 people with no heat in freezing conditions.

By resorting to a campaign of intimidation to terrorize Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh highlights Azerbaijan's true colors and intentions. Their actions speak volumes yet the silence coming from the White House is deafening.

But it's not too late.

President Biden has shown the courage to stand up to bullies on the world stage. Whether its calling Russian President Vladimir Putin a "war criminal" or rejecting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's denial of the Armenian genocide, Biden still has time to change course when dealing with Azerbaijan and its petro-dictator. If Biden truly wants to honor the victims of the Armenian genocide and prevent such an atrocity from ever happening again then he'll do what's right and uphold Section 907 of the Freedom Support Act.

Stephan Pechdimaldji is a communications strategist who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He's a first-generation Armenian American and grandson to survivors of the Armenian genocide.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.