Statement delivered by the Deputy Permanent Representative Nairi Petrossian at the 71st Session of the Executive Committee of the UNHCR’s Programme

07 October, 2020

President,

The new war of Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh started ten days ago. The civilian population and infrastructure have been brutally and indiscriminately attacked since the very first seconds with heavy artillery fire and airborne attacks, including by missiles targeting civilians. Hundreds of homes and key civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and schools, electricity, gas, and communication networks have been destroyed or damaged.

Amnesty International’s Crisis Response experts were able to identify cluster munitions fired by Azerbaijani forces in direction of Stepanakert, the capital city of Nagorno-Karabakh. Cluster bombs are by default indiscriminate weapons, and their use in residential areas is internationally prohibited.

By these actions Azerbaijan aims at not just inflicting damage but to create unbearable conditions for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh forcing them to flee in the face of the massive aggression. Azerbaijan aims at ethnically cleansing Nagorno-Karabakh and forcing its population into displacement. It is a new humanitarian disaster in making.

Turkey continues to vehemently deny that it is militarily involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as well as its transfers of foreign terrorist fighters to Azerbaijan. However, the facts are stubborn things, and the European Court of Human Rights just yesterday adopted an interim measure that recognized Turkey as a party involved in the conflict. A Chamber of seven judges decided to apply its Rule 39.¹. The Court further called on Turkey to refrain from actions that contribute to breaches of the Convention on civilians, and to respect its obligations under the Convention.

The people of Artsakh have every right to exercise their remedial right to self-determination and freely determine their political status. This war, time and again, demonstrates that unrestrained Azerbaijan is tantamount to the total annihilation of these people.

Azerbaijan attempted to annihilate people of Artsakh in the late 1980s and beginning of the 1990s which concluded with several hundred thousand Armenians finding refuge outside Azerbaijan, many of them in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrey Sakharov called it at a time a new Armenian Genocide.

Azerbaijan, however, failed then. It will once again spectacularly fail now.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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