For us, it is highly important to strengthen the international legitimacy of Armenian positions in the issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in his remarks in the Parliament today.
“In this respect, the resolution of the lawsuit that Armenia field against Azerbaijan on September 16, 2021 to the International Court of Justice is significant.
The lawsuit is based on the Convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination, and we hope that the resolution of the lawsuit, which, unfortunately, will not happen very quickly, will become a key factor in the field of protection of rights of Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and will raise the bar of the international community’s perception about the status of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Prime Minister says.
Pashinyan stressed that with its actions Azerbaijan makes our lawsuit that blames it in running a policy of national hatred more and more substantiated.
“Such an action was the infamous trophy park that opened in Baku, showing the mannequins of bleeding Armenian soldiers, and where Azerbaijani school-age children were taken to at a state level to be photographed. These mannequins were removed as a result of the decision of the International Court,” he says.
The PM said one of the most important proofs of the Azerbaijani racial policy was the formation a working group in the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture tasked to eliminate the Armenian inscriptions on Armenian churches.
“First, Azerbaijan blew up the only pipeline supplying gas to Nagorno-Karabakh, at a time when unprecedented low temperatures were recorded in Nagorno-Karabakh. It took 11 days for the pipeline to be restored, but it turned out that during the repair Azerbaijan had installed a valve on the pipeline and this valve was shut the day when unprecedented snowfalls took place in Karabakh, up to 1 meters, and the temperature dropped minus 8 degrees Celsius.
This anti-Armenian campaign was essentially the continuation of the Azerbaijani actions on using loudspeakers in Armenian and Russian languages to demand the residents of several villages of Karabakh to abandon the villages or else be taken out by force. These statements were coupled with nighttime illumination of the village homes and playing of azan, the Muslim call for prayer. This is none other than a manifestation of religious terror and on the other hand the defamation of Islam.
But this invasion into the village of Parukh, which is in the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagoprno-Karabakh, showed that Azerbaijan doesn’t plan to limit itself with psychological terror and that the exodus of Armenians of Artsakh through armed terrorism is its main and key objective,” Pashinyan said.
Pashinyan said that this brings many questions regarding the Russian peacekeeping contingent’s activities in Nagorno-Karabakh. “But now we find it important for the Russian peacekeeping contingent to take measures to withdraw the Azerbaijani military units from its area of responsibility. This is an absolute necessity and a very serious trial for the Russian peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh.”