During the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stated that the protection of the human rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh has been continuously disregarded.
He conveyed Armenia’s firm conviction that the deployment of a UN inter-agency mission to the Lachin corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh is the least that the international community can do under these circumstances.
“The UN is endowed with a universal mandate and must have unconditional and unimpeded access to persons in need,” said Mirzoyan, noting that during the second Artsakh war, the international community, however, remained largely indifferent to Azerbaijan’s actions, while “Azerbaijan was further emboldened, encouraged by impunity.”
“In such an atmosphere of total impunity, Azerbaijan continues to violate the principles of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” stressed Mirzoyan.
“It has been about 80 days since Azerbaijan blocked the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Artsakh to Armenia and the outside world. Azerbaijan has also disrupted the electricity supply and periodically interrupts the gas supply. As a result of all this, the Armenian population of Artsakh stands on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe,” emphasized Ararat Mirzoyan, continuing: “At the same time, Azerbaijan declares at the highest level that it can lift the blockade for all those who wish to leave Nagorno-Karabakh. This is nothing other than a slowly implemented ethnic cleansing.”
