Statement on the 7th Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States

17 October, 2019

as delivered by Ambassador Armen Papikyan, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Armenia at the 1244 Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council

Mr. Chairman,

We took note of the statement just made by Azerbaijani delegation about the 7th Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States held in Baku on 15th of October. It is indeed regrettable that, despite all the urgings by the international community to reduce bellicose rhetoric in order to prepare populations for peace, the Azerbaijani president once again used that event and format to disseminate usual and repetitive anti-Armenian propaganda, even more – to make territorial claims towards the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia – the southern Zangezur region.

Zangezur has never been part of Azerbaijan and we resolutely object to such a blatant and misleading narrative presented by President Aliyev, which is absolutely false and unacceptable. In his statement President Aliyev said that, and I quote “The withdrawal of Zangezur from the rest of Azerbaijan and its accession to Armenia divided the great Turkic world geographically,'' end of quote.

The most regrettable aspect of these claims is that they are not new. Already in June 2014, president of Azerbaijan while addressing the 3rd part-session of the PACE, claimed that Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia and even Armenia itself are Azerbaijani lands. At the time we drew the attention of our partners to these claims and called on the international community to react, saying that absence of swift and condemning reaction would send a wrong signal to the leaders of that country. Unfortunately, our calls fell on deaf ears, and what followed was the April 2016 war, that was unleashed by Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh. I believe that colleagues around the table are well aware of the atrocities and grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law, that were committed by the Azerbaijani armed forces during the April war.

Anyway, President Aliyev repeated his claims again in January 2018. That time it has drawn criticism from both Russian and French foreign ministries, as the OSCE Minsk group Co-Chairs.

Azerbaijani leadership and some pseudo-scholars continuously disseminate an invented and state sponsored version of the history. Those who are more or less familiar with the history of the region and Europe, will be extremely surprised to learn about this parallel history created by those pseudo-scholars. Renowned Greek and Roman historians, European travellers and geographers are not considered as a reliable source; what is apparently relevant is the will of political masters and political convenience.

And last but not least. At the Summit, the president of Azerbaijan combined his claims to Armenian territories with Pan-Turkic and religious accents. Armenia has maintained on numerous occasions its concerns with regards the resurgence of pan-Turkic and pan-ottoman sentiments in the political discourse of our neighbours. This was yet another evidence that putting the ensuring of the security of the Armenian people in the region as policy priority by the Armenian Government was a right and only course of action.

Dear colleagues,

Azerbaijan's and some kinship state`s distorted perceptions of regional security based on pure discrimination impede the peaceful resolution of conflicts and promote regional instability. These unacceptable occurrences jeopardize the security in the OSCE area and come to once again attest that any engagement of such a structure as Cooperation Council of Turkic-Speaking States in the OSCE work will be detrimental to our organisation and confirms Armenia’s well justified and legitimate concerns.

I thank you.

MFA RA
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