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American lawmakers' trips to Baku are raising ethics questions, Houston Chronicle wrote in an article dedicated to the visits of American lawmakers to Baku conference sponsored in part by SOCAR.

Former senator Richard Lugar urged the U.S. Congress to exempt a natural gas field in the Caspian Sea from economic sanctions against Iran during a Baku-hosted conference, newspaper writes.

“Ten congressmen and 35 staffers accepted all- expense-paid trips to the Baku conference," the article says.

And less than two months later, the day before the House vote, the Shah Deniz exemption mysteriously appeared in the final draft of the sanctions bill, which passed.

The authors of the article say none of the lawmakers disclosed any sponsorship of their Baku conference trips in reports filed with the House Ethics Committee.

“Taking a foreign trip to a conference sponsored by corporations that employ lobbyists appears to be a violation of congressional ethics rules, according to the House ethics manual” .

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