Statement In Reply to Azerbaijan delivered by the Permanent Delegation of Armenia at the 1018th Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council

09 October, 2014

Statement In Reply to Azerbaijan delivered by the Permanent Delegation of Armenia at the 1018th Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council

October 09, 2014

Madam Chairperson,

We took note of the statement of the Azerbaijani Delegation, which will be brought to the attention of the Nagorno Karabakh authorities.
Nevertheless, we would like to address some points with regards to the issues raised by the Azerbaijani representative, who attempts to justify crimes committed on the territory of Nagorno Karabakh by an armed criminal group, consisting of three citizens of Azerbaijan, through invoking freedom of movement.
According to the official information provided by the authorities of Nagorno Karabakh, the criminal group, consisting of citizens of Azerbaijan Shahbaz Guliyev, Dilham Asgarov and Hasan Hasanov, armed with machine guns, pistols and grenades, illegally crossed the Line of Contact and committed a number of serious crimes. They kidnapped and a few days later murdered a teenage resident of Shahumyan region of Nagorno-Karabakh Mr. Smbat Tsakanyan. Further on one of the members of the group fired at the car, killing Mr. Sarkis Abrahamian and seriously wounding Mrs. Karine Davtyan.
Freedom of movement does not give a license to kill. It cannot also be invoked to provide impunity to the members of criminal group.
We would like to draw the attention of the Azerbaijani Delegation that Nagorno Karabakh authorities closely cooperate with the International Committee of Red Cross, which has regular access to the above mentioned persons and has never reported any misconduct. Regrettably, it was never the case with the citizen of Armenia Mr. Karen Petrosyan, who was killed in the Azerbaijani custody.

Thank You.

MFA RA
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