As Congress debates legislation (H.R. 6534) to repeal Section 907 of the FREEDOM Support Act, we must consider why Congress should pass the repeal now.
For decades, Section 907 has imposed an unfair and counterproductive restriction on U.S. policy toward Azerbaijan. Passed in 1992 as part of the first assistance package to the newly independent former Soviet states, it restricted direct U.S. government assistance to Azerbaijan until Baku’s economic blockade and military action against neighboring Armenia ceased.
It sends the wrong signal today when Armenia and Azerbaijan are closer than ever to a final peace settlement. Military action has ceased, and initial openings in economic contacts between Armenians and Azerbaijanis have begun.
Most importantly, it is increasingly at odds with evolving American objectives toward a country that is critical in a region of profound strategic value to the United States.
I was in the European Bureau of the Department of State when Congress passed Section 907, and I served as U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan in the mid-1990s when it was implemented.
I saw firsthand how Section 907 undercut U.S. efforts to build a productive relationship with Baku on energy, regional security, human rights, and Caspian cooperation. Fundamentally, it hindered the very objective I was sent to Baku to advance: the diplomatic measures to help end the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan so that these two newly independent nations could build peace while preserving their independence and sovereignty.
Maintaining and implementing a statutory U.S. restriction that singled out Azerbaijan from its neighbors gave comfort to those in Azerbaijan who favored closer ties with Iran and Russia over ties with the U.S. That contradiction was difficult to explain then. Three decades later, with the strategic stakes even larger, it is impossible to explain, especially following the successful Armenia-Azerbaijan summit in Washington last summer.
Every president since George W. Bush has utilized the annual waiver authority added in 2002 to advance U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives. Republican and Democratic administrations alike understood that direct assistance to Azerbaijan was necessary to achieve real American priorities: regional stability, peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, security cooperation, energy and transit resilience, and the broader effort to contain Iranian and Russian influence. Section 907 frustrates American interests in the South Caucasus by undermining the role the United States seeks for Azerbaijan to play in a region of growing strategic importance.
Managing a critical partnership through a series of temporary, annual loopholes is cumbersome and counterproductive today, with an ongoing confrontation with Iran. While Section 907 remains on the books, the U.S. sends mixed signals.
At the Washington summit on Aug. 8, 2025, President Donald Trump hosted the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The two sides initialed a peace agreement, and the U.S. lent its name to a new transit corridor linking Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan through southern Armenia. A U.S.- Azerbaijan Strategic Partnership Charter, signed in Baku during Vice President JD Vance’s Feb. 10 visit, sends an important message, further reinforced by a formal, wide-ranging economic dialogue that began on June 2.
These are not symbolic developments. They show that the region is moving, and that the U.S. intends to help shape what comes next. American law should reflect that important Trump administration intent.
Azerbaijan has supported important U.S. and Western objectives. It participated in coalition operations in Afghanistan for two decades and hosted COP29 in 2024. Under the July 2022 memorandum between Baku and Brussels, Azerbaijani gas supplies to the European Union are projected to double by 2027, making a meaningful contribution to European energy security at a time when that security matters more than ever. Azerbaijan’s position along the Middle Corridor also supports U.S. interests in East-West trade and infrastructure that link Central Asia to the West, bypassing Russia and Iran.
Then there is Iran.
Baku faces direct pressure from Tehran because Azerbaijan sits at the intersection of the region’s most important geopolitical fault lines involving Iran, Russia, and Turkey, and its relationship with the U.S. and Israel. The United States is focused on containing Iranian influence, so Congress should repeal Section 907, an impediment that every administration of both parties has had to circumvent to promote U.S. interests in the region.
Some argue that repealing Section 907 would send the wrong signal or reduce American leverage on Azerbaijan’s human rights abuses and the need to provide regional minority protections. As someone who has spoken out on both issues, I can say that those seeking to preserve the Section 907 restrictions are wrong. Section 907 provides no leverage over Azerbaijan in these areas.
Keeping Section 907 in place signals to Azerbaijan that the U.S. prefers to maintain an outdated restriction rather than promote its own strategic interests. The U.S. has tools to shape the relationship on human rights and minority protections. U.S. leverage includes diplomacy, congressional oversight, conditionality, sanctions authorities where appropriate, and public pressure when needed.
It is time for the U.S. to project consistency between what it says and what it does. For years, administrations of both parties have effectively acknowledged that Section 907 no longer fits the needs of American policy in an ever-evolving relationship with Azerbaijan. Congress should now do the same.
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Repealing Section 907 would recognize the strategic reality that already exists: Azerbaijan matters to the United States, to lasting peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, to energy and transit security, and to the broader effort to contain Iran.
Repealing Section 907 would strengthen U.S. policy, making it more coherent, more credible, and more aligned with American interests. After more than three decades, Congress must remove this impediment to advancing U.S. interests in the South Caucasus.
Ambassador (ret) Richard D. Kauzlarich served as the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan from 1994 to 1997.