On July 17th Ambassador Andranik Hovhannisyan, Permanent Representative of Armenia delivered a statement at the UN Human Rights Council on the aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan against Armenia. He stressed in particular that “starting from July 12 Azerbaijan has been shelling with the use of mortars, heavy artillery and drones deliberately targeting the civilian infrastructure and population on the territory of the Republic of Armenia. These brutal attacks came immediately after the statements of the leadership of Azerbaijan that made territorial claims to Armenia. Furthermore, Azerbaijan publicly stated that the political process for the peaceful conflict settlement is pointless and threatened to solve the issue by force. Yesterday, the spokesperson of the MoD of Azerbaijan publicly threatened to launch missile attack against Armenian nuclear power plant. The state level anti-Armenian hatred and xenophobia in Azerbaijan have been well reported by international organizations, including by CERD and ECRI of the Council of Europe.
As per Nagorno Karabakh itself, it is worth to emphasize that it has never been part of independent Azerbaijan, and Baku has never exercised sovereignty over it. Therefore, the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan has nothing to do with Nagorno-Karabakh. Nagorno Karabakh held a referendum and declared independence in full compliance with both the international law and then applicable constitutional-legislative framework of the USSR.
The international mediators of the conflict, the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, give full credit to the right of people to self-determination as one of the principles of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. This has been supported by all OSCE participating states, including Azerbaijan itself. Furthermore, the mediators have reiterated on numerous occasions that the future legal status of Nagorno Karabakh should be determined by the legally binding free expression of will of its population”.
