1 / 1

On December 2, the Meeting of the PACE Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development was held in Paris. The Member of the RA NA Delegation to PACE Armen Gevorgyan noted during the debate on the theme The Impact of the Armed Conflicts on the Environment in 2022:

“Dear colleagues:

I mentioned in October that the U.S. Congress had been investigating the evidence of the use of prohibited/illegal weaponry by Azerbaijan. Now I would like to update the Committee, that on the 16^th of November a hearing was held at the U.S. Senate where the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Chairman Robert Menendez reconfirmed the fact that “white phosphorus” bombs as well as cluster munitions were used by Azerbaijan in the course of the 2020 war in Nagorno Karabakh. He also expressed concerns that such weaponry was arguably imported to Azerbaijan from Ukraine.

Here, the deputy of Azerbaijan speaks about the use of the banned weapon by the Armenians and bombing the Azerbaijani cities. They all need investigation and confirmation, and they are unfounded accusations, meanwhile the fact of the use of phosphorus bombs was confirmed in the U.S. Congress.

During both major wars, in 1990s and in 2020, the Azerbaijani armed forces employed all available means to subjugate Nagorno Karabakh. During these offensives, the Azerbaijani forces would destroy civilian areas, as well as heritage, religious sites and the environment. Many scars of those hostilities can still be found on the ground. In 2020, the 120.000 people living in Nagorno Karabakh stood against the 10mln Azerbaijan, its ally Turkey with 85mln population and their advanced weaponry systems. This time around Azerbaijan was fighting a different, a lot more devastating war by using more deadly weaponry, including drones and prohibited “white phosphorus” bombs. Moreover, Turkey imported Islamist mercenaries from Syria and Libya into the region.

Furthermore, I would also like to note with regret that in the draft texts of resolution and associated recommendations, we are missing any references to the issue of prohibited/illegal weapons in armed conflicts and their impact on the environment. Hence, I would strongly suggest making appropriate amendments, which I had sent to the rapporteur beforehand.

During discussions of this issue in the Committee a question had been repeatedly raised about lack of constructive position by certain states that had prevented visits to conflict regions by independent experts to fully and objectively assess the impact of armed conflicts on the environment in these regions. Given how important this issue is, I would also kindly suggest including in the Recommendations to the Committee of Ministers a provision to consider the possibility of developing and implementing such mechanisms of independent expert oversight or monitoring of the environmental situation in the conflict and post-conflict regions.

I would like to say to the distinguished deputy of Austria that he has distorted picture of situation in Nagorno Karabakh. The Sarsang Reservoir has never been part of Azerbaijan, it always has been and is on the territory of Nagorno Karabakh, and it could not be occupied by the Armenians. It’s sad that you stick to the so called Azerbaijani narrative propaganda on “occupation of 20% of the territory of Azerbaijan.” If it continues like this, soon we’ll hear from you that Armenians of Karabakh occupied also Nagorno Karabakh.

It will be more honest if you mention that all wars in the region, namely the First Karabakh war, the April war of 2016 or the 44-day war in 2020 - were launched by Azerbaijan, not Armenians. The end goal has been the same: exterminate Armenians. Armenians would rise up to defend themselves and defend their land and reinstate their aspiration for national self-determination and, more practically, the right to exist.

The local Armenian self-defense forces of Nagorno Karabakh, while defending against the attacking Azerbaijani forces, since 1993 had to make them retreat to dozens of kilometers away from their main population centers. A “security belt” around Nagorno Karabakh emerged that had protected the civilian population against repeated, almost daily incursion attempts up until autumn 2020.

I would like to thank our colleague from the French Parliament, who answered the representative of Azerbaijan instead of me that the wish of Azerbaijan to deny the existence of the Karabakh conflict has no connection with the reality.

Yes, the government of Azerbaijan, as well as its representatives in this Assembly, want us to forget about the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. They don’t want you to mention the self-determioned Armenian people of Artsakh, this breakaway region, they don’t want you to speak about the human toll of its aggression during the 44-day war in 2020.

Moreover, Azerbaijan has since May 2021 occupied a few hundred acres of sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and launched new three-day intensive hostilities this September in the Southern Armenia, and they refuse to leave newly occupied Armenian territories.

I call on all the PACE members that instead of honestly mentioning who had been unleashing wars in the course of the past 30 years; who had been consistently carrying out a state policy of ethnic cleansing; who had been using the prohibited "white phosphorus" bombs in the 44-day war; and instead of flagging about the war crimes by Azerbaijan in Spring and Autumn of 2022 against Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia – some members of PACE have just decided to pretend that there is no such conflict at all?”