The Netherlands and EU have the toolkit to prevent war and suffering.
As the world’s and EU’s attention is focused on other borders and many crises around the world the fragile cease-fire that ended the latest aggression by Azerbaijan and Turkey against 150000 Armenians of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) is not stable, as month after the cessation of hostilities Azerbaijan launched another attack, conquering two villages, and taking as PoWs 60 Armenian soldiers (plus to more than 140), and rejects to repatriate them, despite the clear requirement of the International Humanitarian law, demands of the UN, the EU, the Council of Europe, European Court of Human rights and many other countries and organizations.
Doubling his Turkish mentor Erdogan, Azerbaijani dictator doesn’t hide his further aggressive plans: recently Ilham Aliyev literally said: “The creation of the Zangezur corridor fully meets our national, historical and future interests. We are implementing the Zangezur Corridor, whether Armenia wants it or not. If she wants, we will solve this issue easier, if she does not want, we will solve it by force”.
To put it mildly such statements seriously harm the very fragile regional peace and stability and reveal the false nature of the recent Azerbaijani statements over peace and reconciliation.
Read also
It is noteworthy that such threats were made ahead of the 106th commemoration of the Armenian Genocide, this year marked by the recognition by the US President Joe Biden. The Dutch Government is expected to do the same, following almost unanimous (only Denk was against) support by the Dutch political establishment.
Another vivid manifestation of the true intentions of Azerbaijani ruler is the recent opening of the so called “Military trophy park”, which was labelled as macabre or genocide park with wax figures of ugly dying Armenians, with an aim to dehumanize Armenians and present them as subhuman.
I was voicing the alarm exactly a year ago, alerting that in order to distract the attention from the deepening crisis in Azerbaijan and consolidate the power, Aliyev was planning a war, I am doing that now.
The US elections and the terrible situation with pandemic last fall were used by Azerbaijan and Turkey to start the aggression in September, engaging Syrian jihadists and using sophisticated armaments against civilians and hospitals, and now the tensions around the world will free the hands of the two dictators to launch another war and trigger another round of “deep concerns” and “regrets” from the countries and institutions that have all the means and possibilities to prevent the war against a democratic country and pluralistic society.
By adopting two motions on the individual sanctions against President Aliyev, his family and other responsibles for innumerable war crimes the Dutch Tweede Kamer has created the legal basis for the Government to initiate the listing of those individuals under the EU global human rights sanctions regime. It is now up to Dutch Government to act and prevent the new aggression against the democratic society, which the Dutch helped to build throughout the decades.
Tigran Balayan,
Ambassador of Armenia in The Netherlands