“UN High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized the authorities of Armenia for the failure to fully cooperate with the structure. “The International experts are still unable to enter Nagorno-Karabakh”- NKR President Bako Sahakyan’s spokesman, David Babayan, considers this publication a translation of the material in the Azerbaijani website. He assures that there is no such a thing in the Commissioner’s statement, “There is no such a statement in the original text that Armenia or Artsakh hamper the access of the Commissioner experts to Artsakh. There’s no such a thing written. But some Armenian media have taken the translations of Azerbaijani websites and presented in Armenian. Do they want to criticize their own country? Do they benefit or get pleasure out of it? Azerbaijan has interpreted the Commissioner’s statement in its own way, the Armenian media have accepted it as a ground.” Mr. Babayan assures that the Commissioner has not said that Armenia is impeding the works in the NKR conflict zone, or Armenia does not cooperate with them, “On the contrary, the Commissioner’s statement indicate that Azerbaijan’s policy regarding the refugees, and you know that there are camps in Azerbaijan where there are people living in the style of Hollywood and Bollywood for being photographed, they are crying and screaming that their houses have changed, different experts have visited there.
And when the Commissioner says that we are unable to see the situation, this means that they are accepting that what Azerbaijanis do is a show, and visiting these camps it is impossible to visualize the situation. This is the beginning of the criticisms that the UN should have addressed to Azerbaijan. In fact, the UN submits an application to cooperate with Artsakh.” As for the UN experts’ visit to Artsakh, according to Mr. Babayan, “They have visited the conflict zone, for example, in 2004 they freely visited and get acquainted with the situation. We are always open for any cooperation. Official Stepanakert says that the non-recognition cannot be a ground for Artsakh to cooperate with various countries and organizations in the humanitarian aspect. I repeat, we see positive messages in this statement by the UN High Commissioner, they criticize Azerbaijan, the UN announces that it is ready to cooperate with Artsakh.” To our question of why the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights did not make it clear that for example, the Azerbaijani side creates obstacles, Mr. Babayan replied, “It is another matter, we will get to it slowly.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
