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The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh has worked to strengthen its fledgling democracy, holding regular free and fair presidential and parliamentary elections praised by the international observers, reads the article published on the U.S. publication The Hill.

“Despite Azerbaijan's crippling blockade, the Nagorno Karabakh leadership is also successfully working to bring outside investments and creating new jobs in the Republic,” the article reads.

Azerbaijan has become increasingly authoritarian and undemocratic. Carnegie Endowment for Peace Senior Associate Thomas DeWaal reports that "in the last year, Azerbaijan has embarked on a crackdown targeted specifically against Western-leaning human rights, civil society activists and opposition politicians.

U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar, in a candid interview with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty reporter Khadija Ismayilova, explained how "deeply disturbed the U.S. Government is by recent events." Those types of candid statements by Ambassador Morningstar and European officials have been met by Azerbaijani government rants accusing Western leaders of "attempts to interfere in Azerbaijan’s domestic and foreign policy" and fomenting an uprising similar to the Maidan movement in Ukraine.

The author thinks that a principled and practical policy based on democratic self-determination will both keep faith with the core moral values and serve American national interests by bringing a long-overdue peace to the South Caucasus.

According to the article on June 28th, at the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) plenary session, President Aliyev made the astounding claim that "the existing Armenian state was created on Azerbaijani lands."

“Both the Republics of Armenia and Artsakh have agreed with a proposal by the U.S. and other OSCE Minsk Group co-Chairs to pull back snipers from the front-lines, but Azerbaijan has vetoed this life-saving proposition,” he notes

The article highlights that far from creating an atmosphere for peace, President Aliyev foments anti-Armenian violence and hatred, most notably through the 2012 pardon, promotion and praise of Azerbaijani Lieutenant Ramil Safarov, who brutally axed to death Armenian Lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan in his sleep during a NATO Partnership for Peace English language training program, held in Hungary in 2004.

When the people of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) decided to get peacefully reunited with the Soviet Armenia after 70 years of economic and political discrimination in Soviet Azerbaijan, Baku responded to this with violence. Pogroms were organized against the Armenian population of Sumgait, Kirovabad, Maragha and Baku. In 1991, a democratic referendum was held in Nagorno Karabakh regarding the laws existing at the time. Karabakh people voted for independence from Soviet Azerbaijan. The U.S. Congress condemned the aggression against the Armenians performed in 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1992, and also took the 907th amendment to the "Act on the Protection of Freedom", limiting the U.S. assistance to Azerbaijan. Since then, Congress constantly allocates aid to Nagorno Karabakh, the author concludes.