WASHINGTON, DC – As U.S. Ambassador James Warlick gears up to make a statement on Nagorno Karabakh tomorrow, Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Executive Director Aram Hamparian underscored the importance of aligning U.S. policy with American values.

“The standard against which we measure our State Department's policy on Nagorno Karabakh is, of course, America's core commitment to the universal values of freedom and democracy,”  said Hamparian.  “Since the era in which we won our own independence, Americans have stood proudly on the side of liberty, rejecting foreign rule over free peoples, and defending - for ourselves and all humankind - the enduring principle that governments must derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

American Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick will deliver a speech on Karabakh in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington.“It will be a statement of US policy,” Warlick said.

“The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh's independence, like our own, represents the victory of democratic self-determination over foreign tyranny and aggression.  We rightfully celebrate and support this great triumph of the human spirit,”  noted Hamparian.  “As Americans, we should never ask others to live with less freedom than we would accept for ourselves.”