Armenia filed a lawsuit against Azerbaijan at the International Court of Justice, asking Azerbaijan to stop the blockade of the Lachin Corridor. Meanwhile, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, has already announced that they are not interested in international reactions and will continue their actions.
Larisa Alaverdyan, the guest of the “Aravot” program “Areresum” (Confrontation), the first human rights defender of Armenia, and the executive director of “Against Legal Arbitrariness” NGO, said in this regard;
“When discussing international pressure, we must first clarify that the response to Armenia’s requests is somewhat weaker. I have been insisting for years that what Azerbaijan does, has one name, Genocide.
Concerning the closure of the Lachine Corridor today: Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide clearly states: “Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
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The Republic of Armenia never makes a claim based on that definition. And on the contrary, the UN Security Council defined it as a “humanitarian disaster” – not at all the level and speech that Armenia should have voiced.
Commenting on the international response, Genocide Watch research team leader Nat Hill noted that today there are more words than actions. The other guest of the program, the permanent representative of Artsakh in Armenia, Sergey Ghazaryan, agreed with that assessment.”Unfortunately, there is the problem that the international structures, as well as the international legal system, need help to apply tools in the practical field, and many things are impossible to implement. And this opens an excellent opportunity for our enemies, who use it very well and still point out, like Aliyev, that it has nothing to do with them. They saw the “reaction” of the international community after the 2020 war. Although there were many examples of how many international conventions were violated and that they unleashed this aggression, etc., there was no responsibility. And we all know that the lack of responsibility leads to the repetition of such provocations and aggression.”
Reference was made to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s speech at the government session, in particular to the following statement. “I must honestly say that the Republic of Armenia is a convinced supporter of the presence of the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation in Nagorno-Karabakh. But the more and more visible behavior of the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation of becoming a silent witness of the depopulation of Nagorno Karabakh is unacceptable for us “.
Larisa Alaverdyan considered this in the following context. “This is the continuation of the clear policy adopted by this group that came to power in 2018, mainly that it is necessary to leave the CSTO, etc. Second, is there a substitute for (Russian peacekeepers. ed.)? As far as I know, a reasonably high-ranking EU official said they do not intend to send troops there. In other words, let’s make it clear that no state or international organization is ready to do this today.”
The permanent representative of Artsakh in Armenia noted: “Regarding the implementation of the mission of Russian peacekeepers, yes, the Armenian side has questions. And we should have that mechanism to state in what situations we are dissatisfied. It is reasonable, after the events of Khtsaberd and Hin Tagher in December 2020; unfortunately, this has started to have a continuous nature.” However, he added that they are very well aware that Azerbaijan will not stop with these provocations and has planned other stimulants to reconsider Russian peacekeepers’ presence in Artsakh.
“Today, the Azerbaijani side can block Armenia’s proposal to send a UN mission to Artsakh”, Armenian Human Rights Defender Kristine Grigoryan told “Azatutyan” when she asked whether they could convince their international partners to go to Artsakh and understand the situation. In response to this mention, Armenia’s first human rights defender conveyed her impression. “Representatives of Armenia seem to be running after an already-flying plane. It always happens by missing such a particular period that every time it appears, it is late or not required at this time.”
Anna ISRAYELYAN
