Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon. Marise Payne has formally responded to the Armenian-Australian community’s #RecognizeArtsakh petition at the request of Parliament, reaffirming the Federal Government’s post-2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War position of supporting the right to self-determination equally with the OSCE Minsk Group’s other conflict resolution principles, reported the Armenian National Committee of Australia (ANC-AU).
The petition, which was the sixth most signed with 3,164 signatories from the preceding 150 posted on the Australian Parliament’s website, was presented to the House of Representatives on Monday 15th February 2021 by Ken Dowd MP, Chair of the Standing Committee on Petitions, after Azerbaijan’s Turkey-backed military operations resulted in their occupation of the indigenous Armenian Republic of Artsakh.
In her response to the petition, which called on the Federal Government to “recognize the fundamental right to self-determination of the indigenous Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Minister Payne reiterated the Australian Government’s support for the OSCE Minsk Group process and support for a peaceful solution guided by all three of the Helsinki Final Act principles, including the “equal rights and self-determination of people.”
