Mr FARMANYAN (Armenia) – Colleagues, you will know that Azerbaijani military forces recently carried out an attack against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. A new phrase – “a four-day war” – has already been coined to describe it. Azerbaijani armed forces used deadly offensive weaponry obtained in the course of the past 20 years in gross breach of all international norms set by the OSCE. The use of force by Azerbaijan is contrary to the key documents of international law – the UN Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and others. The Azerbaijani attack amounts to an act of aggression under international law. The Azerbaijani army targeted civilian infrastructures and peaceful populations. Twelve-year-old Vaghinak Grigoryan was killed and two other children seriously injured in a playground bombarded by Azerbaijani forces. That is not the only case of violence against the civilian population. Valera and Razmela Khalapyan, an elderly couple, were shot in their home by the Azerbaijani military, who also cut off their ears. They also executed 92-year-old Marousya Khalapyan and tortured a 104-year-old woman, who by the way is six years older than Azerbaijan itself. All the people who were killed and tortured were elderly and somewhat infirm. Moreover, three soldiers from the Nagorno-Karabakh defence army, including Karam Sloyan, were beheaded by Azerbaijani troops as ISIS would have done. You can find all the photos on social networks and they provide evidence of the cruelty of Azerbaijani soldiers, who posed with Karam Sloyan’s head as a trophy. Later the head was passed to the local Azerbaijani population as a trophy for them, encouraging hatred and aggression against Armenians.
Baku has taken no official action to punish the guilty. It has once again violated numerous international treaties such as the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the European Convention on Human Rights, the Geneva conventions on the protection of victims of war and many others. Another incident included the torture of prisoners of war and the mutilation of the bodies of 18 Nagorno-Karabakh soldiers handed over to the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities in the presence of the representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross a week after the hostilities.
Colleagues, we cannot close our eyes to these crimes committed by the Azerbaijani military.
