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The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) continued calls for grassroots action to increase aid to Nagorno-Karabakh and foster stronger U.S.-Armenia trade relations, as President Obama rolled out his Fiscal Year 2017 (FY2017) budget request, reported Asbarez.

President Obama proposed a $22,412,000 allocation in economic aid to Armenia – a 22% increase over last year’s request, but far less than the $40,000,000 previously advanced by the ANCA and Congressional Armenian Caucus. The FY2017 request for Azerbaijan is $10,936,000.

The White House’s proposal did maintain parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan in terms of appropriated military aid, with International Military Education and Training (IMET) assistance set at $600,000 and Foreign Military Finance (FMF) at $1,000,000. President Obama also requested $1,700,000 for International Narcotics Control and Law enforcement for Armenia.

The Administration’s budget does not include any figures for aid to Nagorno-Karabakh, although, over the past several years the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has allocated at least $1,500,000 annually for this purpose.

ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian stated that the ANCA would place a high priority on securing an appropriation of at least $5 million in aid to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The ANCA kicked off its FY2017 appropriations campaign last week, issuing an online action alert outlining its requests, which include at least $40 million in U.S. economic assistance to Armenia, targeted to growing the U.S.-Armenia trade and investment relationship; at least $10 million in emergency aid to help Armenia settle the nearly 20,000 thousand people who have fled to Armenia from Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East; at least 10% of U.S. assistance to Georgia to be used for job creation programs in the densely Armenian-populated Samtskhe-Javakheti region of that country; and zero-out U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan until its leaders agree with the Royce-Engel peace proposals to withdraw snipers and heavy arms, add OSCE observers, and deploy gunfire locator systems.

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