An adviser to President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan on Friday slammed Senator Ed Markey and Representative Frank Pallone calling them “liars” and “tools of the Armenian lobby,” after the two U.S. lawmakers told reporters in Washington this week about an orchestrated campaign by “thugs” to intimidate them while they were in Baku to attend the United Nations Climate summit, known as COP29.
During a press conference in Washington on Monday, Pallone described the repeated and “synchronized” efforts by pro-Aliyev “protesters or thugs” at COP29 to assault the thirty-year Congressional Armenian Caucus founding co-chair for his outspoken support for Artsakh self-determination and Armenia security during.
“If it wasn’t for the fact that U.S. Embassy-hired [bodyguards] protected me, I would have been in the hospital. And, it was serious. I just want to be honest. It was very serious,” Pallone said.
“Like Frank [Pallone], I felt I had to have a bodyguard with me at all times. Even in the lobby of the hotel, even going up to my room,” Markey told reporters, concurring Pallone’s account of the situation.
Markey and Pallone were part of Congressional delegation that traveled to Baku to attend COP29. The two lawmakers reported that all members of the bi-partisan delegation conveyed their concerns to Azerbaijani officials about the country’s abhorrent human rights record, and urged them to release Armenian captives being held in Baku, as well as to guarantee the safe return of Armenians who were forced to flee their homeland of Artsakh.
In response to Markey and Pallone, Aliyev’s chief adviser, Hikmet Hajiyev, took to the social media platform X, and in scathing post slammed the two U.S. lawmakers
“@FrankPallone and senator @EdMarkey upon returning to the U.S. after their visit to Baku, are once again presenting the outcomes in a way that aligns with what the Armenian lobby wants to hear,” Aliyev’s chief adviser wrote in the post.
“I pointed out that during the 30 years of Armenia’s military occupation and ethnic cleansing of over one million Azerbaijanis, neither he nor his colleagues remembered justice. On the contrary continued to support Armenia’s military aggression against Azerbaijan,” Hajiyev said about his meeting with Markey.
Hajiyev went on to write that he told Markey that “the investigations into the crimes of separatist war criminals in Azerbaijan, including the illegal arms dealer and oligarch Ruben Vardanyan, who supported separatism in Ukraine (and blacklisted) and engaged in money laundering, will be brought to a logical conclusion, and they will face justice.”
“The Armenian lobby in the U.S. continues to create a politically toxic environment. They are part of problem. And they need reason d’etre for fund raising,” Hajiyev said.
“I recommended that members of the House of Representatives and Senate refrain from becoming tools of the Armenian lobby. We are moving step by step closer to peace with Armenia in the region. However, some U.S. lawmakers, incited by the Armenian lobby, hinder regional peace, refuse to acknowledge the reality on the ground, and attempt to drag us back to the past,” Hajiyev said he told Markey.
“COP29 in Azerbaijan offered a unique opportunity to promote clean energy and regional cooperation but it is critical for the United States to address the significant challenges posed by ongoing human rights violations and unresolved territorial conflicts in Azerbaijan,” Markey told reporters. “We must draw attention to Azerbaijan’s unacceptable human rights record and promote positive change. We cannot be silent. We cannot ignore the hostile climate in which the conference is right now still taking place.”
Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said he was blunt during his meeting with Hajiyev.
“The Azerbaijani government must immediately and unconditionally release all Armenian and Azeri political prisoners, guarantee the right of return for ethnic Armenian civilians to Nagorno Karabakh, and negotiate in good faith a peace agreement with Armenia that protects regional peace and internationally agreed-upon borders,” Markey said he told Hajiyev.
The senator then lamented that U.S. Congressional concerns voiced to Hajiyev went on deaf ears, with the Azerbaijani official continuously blaming Armenia.
In his post on X, Hajiyev said Pallone suffered “psychological and mental distress” when he looked out his hotel window facing the so-called “Trophy Park,” which displays destroyed military equipment seized from Artsakh solders.
“Perhaps it was divine retribution for the injustices he [Pallone] has supported against the Azerbaijani people over the years,” Hajiyev said in his post on Friday.
“Time and again, Pallone is lying,” Hajiyev said in his post. “His attempt to stage a show in Azerbaijan failed. Citizens exercised their right to peaceful assembly, including internally displaced persons, families of martyrs, and civil society representatives, holding peaceful protest.”
