HRC 51st Session: Right of Reply: General debate under Agenda item 2: Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General.

14 September, 2022

Delivered by Mr. Henrik YERITSYAN, Second Secretary

First Right of Reply

President,

Armenia exercises its right of reply to Azerbaijan and Pakistan that spoke on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

As the Deputy High Commissioner rightly said the pursuit of peace, stability and justice should unite us all. Therefore, we should not limit ourselves to protecting exclusively the human rights of our kin because all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Both this august Council and the OHCHR ought to be there for all without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. In our view, that is a critical test to political will for this Council, the OHCHR and its leadership.

We regret the unfair attack and several unsubstantiated allegations directed at the Republic of Armenia in the OIC remarks, since Armenia enjoys good relations with nearly all OIC members. We understand that the OIC was again mislead by Azerbaijan. Armenia emphasizes that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a religious one and cannot be anointed in religious terms. We reject attempts to portray it as such. Furthermore, we do not feel compelled to seek similar solutions.

Armenia is convinced that human rights are universal and are not limited to religious affiliations. For that matter, we demand justice for Rohingya people out of principle. Armenia is an overwhelmingly Christian and secular nation, and the stance we have adopted is not driven by religious sensibilities. In stark difference, Azerbaijan pursues ethnic- and religious-centered agenda imposing it upon the multilateral settings it belongs to and weighs some influence in, such as the OIC.

Furthermore, while preaching tolerance in international settings Azerbaijan vandalizes Armenian cultural and religious heritage. As is evident from the satellite images, another medieval church has been completely destroyed recently in the occupied Armenian Hadrut.

The support Azerbaijan receives from a very few OIC members emboldens it to continue this kind of destruction and the very war of aggression, as it has done again only days ago. The renewed aggression of September 13 was a blatant breach of the Charter of the United Nations, its purposes and principles of peaceful settlement of disputes, prevention and removal of threats to the peace and refraining from the use of force. The few supporters of Azerbaijan should give it a serious thought.

I thank you.

Second Right of Reply

President,

We requested the floor to exercise our second right of reply to Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan loves to talk about peace, multiculturalism, interfaith dialogue and such nice things. The problem is that its talk is never substantiated on the ground vis-à-vis Armenians. We are unfortunate to know well their strategies that result in torture, murder and mutilation of Armenians that fall into their hands.

Azerbaijan launched a war of aggression last night, and it was a peculiar way to display a peace-loving policy. It has already been for almost two years that Azerbaijan brazenly violates IHL by keeping under its custody the Armenian Prisoners of War and civilian detainees. It further refuses to cooperate with the European Court of Human Rights on the latter’s interim measures addressing their rights.

Azerbaijan is openly and impudently engaged in the ethno-demographic engineering in the Armenian villages and towns that it captured. It continues the destruction of Armenian monuments in a sheer defiance to the ruling of the International Court of Justice “to prevent and punish acts of vandalism and desecration affecting Armenian cultural heritage.”

Azerbaijan should make no mistakes: A solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict imposed with uninhibited and sheer force, heinous war crimes and grave violations of the international human rights law and international humanitarian law will never become a basis for a lasting and sustainable peace. The peace in Nagorno-Karabakh should be built on the premises of justice, accountability and respect to international law. It should fully take into account the human rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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