Observers of the European Union stand subsequent to their automobiles on a street close to the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and Nagorno Karabakh area exterior the village of Kornidzor, Armenia. Reuters
Armenia requested the United Nations on Saturday to dispatch a mission to safe the protection of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh after Azerbaijan reclaimed the world and vowed to guard minority rights.
For the second time for the reason that fast Azerbaijani operation within the mountainous terrain, the enemies’ senior diplomats battled on the United Nations, as Western nations expressed concern.
Armenia, which has vivid reminiscences of mass deaths in the course of the Ottoman Empire’s final days that Armenians, the US, and plenty of historians contemplate genocide, has accused Turkish ally Azerbaijan of getting ready ethnic cleaning.
“After failure of preventing genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations managed to create mechanisms for prevention, thus making the ‘never again’ a meaningful pledge,” Armenian International Minister Ararat Mirzoyan mentioned.
“But today we are at the brink of another failure,” he mentioned in a speech to the UN Basic Meeting.
He known as for the United Nations to ship a mission instantly to Nagorno-Karabakh to “monitor and assess the human rights, humanitarian and security situation on the ground.”
When the 2 senior diplomats attended a particular Safety Council session on Thursday, Azerbaijan’s overseas minister, Jeyhun Bayramov, accused Armenia of misinformation.
Bayramov additionally addressed the Basic Meeting on Saturday, saying that Azerbaijan, which is predominantly Muslim, will respect Armenians, who’re Christian.
“I wish to reiterate that Azerbaijan is determined to reintegrate ethnic Armenian residents of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan as equal citizens,” Bayramov mentioned.
“We continue to firmly believe that there is a historic opportunity for both Azerbaijan and Armenia to establish good neighborly relations and coexist side by side in peace,” Bayramov mentioned.
US requires protections
Russia, which despatched peacekeepers after earlier violence in 2020, on Saturday was supervising the disarmament of ethnic Armenian fighters.
If the give up is accomplished, it may successfully finish a battle that has erupted periodically for the reason that fall of the Soviet Union.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who had led three rounds of talks searching for a diplomatic resolution, voiced “deep concern” for the ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh in a phone name with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
Blinken advised him that the US is urgent Azerbaijan “to protect civilians and uphold its obligations to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and to ensure its forces comply with international humanitarian law,” State Division spokesman Matthew Miller mentioned.
Azerbaijan’s swift offensive, which killed some 200 folks, has sparked protests in Armenia in opposition to Russia, which had been tasked with guaranteeing the truce after the 2020 preventing.
Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov, chatting with reporters on the United Nations, accused Western powers of “pulling the strings” to undermine Moscow but additionally mentioned, “Unfortunately, the leadership of Armenia from time to time adds fuel to the fire itself.”
Lavrov pointed to at least one senior Armenian politician who mentioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin had handed Nagorno-Karabakh over to Azerbaijan.
“It is ludicrous to accuse us of this,” Lavrov mentioned whereas including that he anticipated Armenians to take care of in Moscow’s orbit and never ally with “those who swoop in from abroad.”
A declaration signed in 1991 in Kazakhstan’s largest metropolis Almaty, then referred to as Alma-Ata, said that the prevailing borders of newly impartial international locations that had been Soviet republics had been inviolable.
The declaration “meant that Nagorno-Karabakh was part of Azerbaijan — pure and simple as that,” Lavrov mentioned.