The U.S. Export-Import Bank Wednesday voted to approve a controversial deal to finance Azerbaijan’s purchase of an advanced satellite. It happened just weeks after Azerbaijan threatened to shoot down a civilian airliner, reads the statement by the Armenian National Congress of America.

 “We are troubled that the Export-Import Bank chose to move forward with this ill-advised deal,” said Aram Hamparian, Executive Director of the ANCA.

“The Obama Administration’s business-as-usual approach with Ilham Aliyev, who has been seriously preparing for war, undermines America’s long term interests in stability in this region.  We should not, in any way, use American resources to reward warmongering or add to the capabilities of a dictator, who is openly threatening to use every asset at his disposal to renew his country’s aggression,” he added.

The firm selling this satellite, known as Azerspace/Africasat-1A, is Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Virginia. It is being purchased by the Ministry of Communications and Information Technologies of Azerbaijan in Baku, Azerbaijan.

“The Bank’s written assurance to us, in the form of a letter from its President Fred P. Hochberg, that the satellite ‘lack[s] military capabilities’ and that it has taken ‘appropriate safeguards’ to keep this satellite out of the hands of ‘military entities,’ falls short of the level of transparency that should be required of a highly sensitive deal of this nature,” Hamparian said.