Statement of the Delegation of Armenia during the adoption of the HRC Resolution “Ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic”

23 March, 2021

HRC 46^rd Session: A/HRC/46/L.25/Rev.1

Explanation of vote before the vote on the draft Resolution “Ensuring equitable, affordable, timely and universal access for all countries to vaccines in response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic”

Delivered by H.E. Andranik HOVHANNISYAN, Permanent Representative

President,

Armenia thanks Ecuador for the initiative and diligent efforts in steering negotiations on this important topic. There was, however, a competing initiative by Azerbaijan, which absorbed Ecuador’s draft. Armenia also engaged with Azerbaijan in good faith. We proposed some language regarding the Secretary General’s call for global ceasefire, the UN role and the need for unhindered humanitarian access to the conflict-affected areas to address the pandemic. All the proposals we made were borrowed from the previously agreed and unanimously adopted UN Security Council resolutions. All our drafting suggestions were declined, thus turning a blind eye to the suffering of people entangled in conflicts and humanitarian aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

President,

In November 2020 Azerbaijani Government issued postal stamps addressing COVID-19 that depicted a disinfection specialist standing over a map of the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh and fumigating it. The message was obvious: Armenians are a virus that should be eradicated. The high-level officials of Azerbaijan publicly stated the list of their enemies whom they intended to destroy and it included the COVID-19, their opposition (to which they refer to as a ‘fifth column’), and Armenians. This transforms Azerbaijan’s sanctimonious promotion of the COVID-19 vaccination agenda into an attempt to legitimize its campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno Karabakh.

It is for this reason that Armenia expresses reservation on preambular paragraph 12 for which, we believe, Azerbaijan abused its NAM Presidency and impaired the good initiative of Ecuador. Armenia questioned in New York the added value and integrity of Azerbaijan’s initiative to hold on 3^rd and 4^thof December 2020 the thirty-first special session of the General Assembly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic against its declared objectives. Azerbaijan’s true motivation has been to instrumentalize the pandemic and the humanitarian challenges around it. Armenia cannot give a blank check welcome to Azerbaijan without recalling its sheer hate speech campaign and suffering it brought.

However, in the spirit of shared values and enhanced cooperation harbored by the United Nations and this august Council, Armenia decided to join consensus on this draft resolution. We find that its subject is extremely important for the global multilateral cooperation.

In the light of the abovementioned, the Delegation of Armenia disassociates from the preambular paragraph 12 of the resolution as orally revised and requests that this statement be reflected in the official records of the meeting.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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