Statement delivered by Ambassador Armen Papikyan at the 1284th PC meeting on the Aggression of Azerbaijan against Artsakh and Armenia with the Direct Involvement of Turkey and Foreign Terrorist Fighters

08 October, 2020

I would like to start my statement with expressing Armenia’s gratitude to all our international partners who, through their statements reiterated that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot be solved through military means.

As we speak now the fierce fights with terrorists and their accomplices are continuing along the entire line of contact between Artsakh and Azerbaijan. The armed units of the state sponsored terrorists turned once blooming cities of Stepanakert, Shushi, Hadrut and Martuni into rubbles. For 12 days now the residential areas of those cities, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, critical and communication infrastructure have been heavily bombarded with banned cluster bombs and munition, banned under the international humanitarian law, missiles and kamikaze and combat UAVs. The number of confirmed casualties among civilians stands at 21, while more than 80 are wounded. According to reports, currently around half of the Artsakh population are internally displaced and authorities of Artsakh taking necessary measures to ensure their safety and security.

Emboldened by Turkey’ unconditional political support and strong backing and despite constant international calls for halting the violence, Azerbaijan considers that nothing or nobody prevents it from shelling the peaceful population, day and night.

The robust international reaction to the war crimes committed by Azerbaijan against the people of Artsakh proved Azerbaijan wrong. To pre-empt most probable allegations of Azerbaijan that Armenia is engaged in disinformation campaign, I should refer to Amnesty international, which, in particular, said about the footage on the screen that it is “consistent with the use of cluster munitions in the city of Stepanakert”. “Amnesty International’s Crisis Response experts were able to trace the location of the footage to residential areas of Stepanakert and identified Israeli-made M095 DPICM cluster munitions that appear to have been fired by Azerbaijani forces.” Furthermore, the Amnesty International also stressed that “Cluster bombs are inherently indiscriminate weapons, and their deployment in residential areas is absolutely appalling and unacceptable.”

Yesterday, the Cultural Centre of Shushi was wiped out reportedly by Israeli made LORA long range quasi-ballistic missile. At the moment of shelling there were tens of women and children hiding in the basement. Unfortunately, according to preliminary reports there are civilians killed and wounded. Currently the authorities of Artsakh are trying to identify the number of casualties. For those not familiar with the technical characteristics and capacities of LORA missile, let me inform you that it has a circular error probability of 10 meters which proves that the strike was a deliberate act of intimidation, hence exposing the criminal nature of the orders of the politico-military leadership of Azerbaijan. Today, just a couple of hours ago the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi has been bombed in an air attack. The news of hitting the Cultural Centre in Shushi was immediately followed by a hypocritical interview of the assistant of the President of Azerbaijan claiming that Azerbaijan is aiming only at military targets.

The indiscriminate shelling of civilian population and infrastructure has also been reported by numerous international media. And because of that reporting, journalists themselves came under attack. All journalists present on the ground both local and international were targeted right after their livestream reports. This means that they have been located by their Internet Protocol addresses and deliberately targeted by Azerbaijani armed forces. Targeting everything and everyone that has anything to do with the free media is becoming modus operandi of Azerbaijani authorities.

Today I would like to commend the courage and dedication of journalists and media professionals, who without second thought to their safety and life, continue to work in Stepanakert and other cities of Artsakh to document and report on the crimes against humanity and war crimes that on a daily basis are being committed by Azerbaijani armed forces, with direct involvement of Turkey and support of foreign terrorist fighters and jihadist groups.

Mr. Chairman,

Being unable to cease Artsakh, Azerbaijan gradually increased the duration and intensity of bombing the peaceful cities and villages. Desperate, the politico-military leadership of Azerbaijan under the pressure of Turkey is pursuing tactics aiming to erase entirely or in part the capital city Stepanakert, cities of Shushi, Martuni, Hadrut and other settlements, in order to create unbearable conditions of living for the population that will be lucky enough to survive the war crimes of Azerbaijan.

This tactic of scorched land is aimed to destroy and wipe out the people of Artsakh. Then what is it, if not ethnic cleansing. We can already see that Armenia’s warnings about Azerbaijan being the existential threat to the people of Artsakh were not mere words. These inhumane and criminal acts are yet to be assessed properly. I believe that the attempts by Azerbaijani regime and its affiliate terrorist groups to wipe out the entire population of Artsakh makes recognition of independence of Artsakh even more relevant than before.

The Government of Armenia has already lodged two applications at the European Court of Human Rights requesting the Court to apply interim measures both against Azerbaijan and Turkey. The Court decided to apply the Rule 39 of the Rules of the Court regarding the interim measures on both accounts. This means that the Court, having considered the evidence provided by the Government of Armenia as well as numerous video and photo publications and witness accounts by local and international media and humanitarian organisations, found that Turkey’s involvement is beyond any doubt and that Turkey also will be held responsible for the breaches of the European Convention of Human Rights, in particular its Article 2 (right to life) and Article 3 (prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment).

The actions of the Azerbaijani administration are the illustration of the policy of Anti-Armenian hatred and discrimination that has been adopted at the state level in Azerbaijan and has been pursued by its regime for the last 30 years.

In his October 4 address to the nation President Aliyev used extremely derogatory language towards Armenians saying “Now we have shown who is who. We are driving them away like dogs! Azerbaijani soldiers drive them away like dogs!”. This is not the language that might be used by the leader of the OSCE participating State. This language belongs to terrorists and jihadists.

Mr. Chairman,

Since the last PC meeting, when we have had the opportunity to present the situation on the ground, the intensive fights continued almost without cessation primarily in the northern and southern directions of the frontline. The massive nature of the attacks is clearly seen from the number of heavy military hardware used by Azerbaijan both on the land and in air.

The number of military casualties on the side of the Artsakh Defence Army are regularly provided. Even though the Azerbaijani side does not provide any information about its troop losses, we have our own calculations, and we see that this number is huge, reaching several thousands. It is also notable that the majority of Azerbaijani military losses are representatives of national minorities, such as Lezgins and Talyshs.

In this context, I should also recall the urgent call by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs made in their statement of October 2 for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to enable the repatriation of remains of fallen servicemen in coordination with the OSCE and ICRC. Needless to say, this call also went unheeded by Azerbaijan and its terrorist affiliates, simply because neither the current Azerbaijani regime nor Turkey are not accountable before the people of Azerbaijan and even less so before terrorist fighters.

Mr. Chairman,

From day one of the current aggression of Azerbaijan, and even before that, the Armenian delegation stressed again and again the destructive role of Turkey. Indeed, with every new day of fighting on the frontline we see more and more evidence of Turkey’s not only indirect but also direct military involvement in the battlefield.

I am not going to repeat all the facts that attest to Turkey’s involvement. We have already said about the engagement of Turkish air forces in providing air support for ground operations of Azerbaijani troops, about Turkish F16 fighter jet’s downing of Armenia’s Su25 aircraft which was patrolling the Armenian airspace, and to forestall the Azerbaijani comment I shall repeat that we do not speak about Azerbaijani F16 jets, we speak about Turkish Air Force F16 jets, about Turkey carrying out the air command and control of aerial attacks and bombardments. We already said about recruitment of foreign terrorist fighters and jihadist groups by Turkey and their transfer to Azerbaijan. Since the beginning of aggression, the body of evidence regarding the involvement of foreign terrorist fighters and jihadist groups was not only reconfirmed but further solidified. The information about the number of killed terrorists and jihadists is provided by the media as well. According to our sources, the death toll among foreign terrorist fighters and jihadists stand at more than 350. Based on credible reports, at least 55 bodies of killed FTFs have already been transferred back to Syria for burial.

Esteemed colleagues,

Two days ago, Turkey’s Foreign Minister visited Baku. This visit came after the latest statements by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries issued at the level of respective Foreign Ministers. This was after almost unanimous calls from the international community to external parties, namely Turkey, to refrain from interfering either directly or indirectly in the conflict, to refrain from bellicose rhetoric that would further ignite the tensions and violence. This was after the NATO Secretary General said that he “expects Turkey to use its considerable influence to calm tensions”.

And what we have seen? Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that he is going to Baku to demonstrate Turkey’s solidarity with and support to Azerbaijan. According to Azerbaijani media Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey is ready to render its support in any sphere, whenever Azerbaijan will need it.

Turkish Minister also said that Turkish Embassies are also engaged in supporting Azerbaijan and that they will continue their joint efforts with greater vigour in line with instructions received from Azerbaijan’s leader. He repeated remarks made earlier that Turkey will fight with Azerbaijan on the battlefield as well as around the negotiations table.

As a result of his visit and expressed support, Azerbaijani authorities in total disregard of international calls restarted large-scale attacks, with specific focus on the southern direction of the frontline, as well as intensive shelling of cities and civilian infrastructure.

The Defence Army of Artsakh fully cognizant of the disastrous consequences that the deployment of foreign terrorist fighters and jihadists to the South Caucasus will have in terms of peace and security of the region, as well as safety of its people, battles today against the international terrorism sponsored by Turkey and the Aliyev regime in Azerbaijan.

Moreover, the intelligence confirmed data suggest that terrorist organisations and groups such Jabhat al-Nusra, Firqat al-Hamza, Sultan Murad, which are on the UN list of terrorists organisations, are fighting today alongside Azerbaijani army against Armenians of Artsakh. These organisations are recognised as terrorists also by the respective decision of the OSCE. Intelligence reports also suggest that the geography of recruitment of terrorist fighters might grow towards Afghanistan and Pakistan. Particularly, there are reports of agreement reached by Turkey with the leader of Islamic party /Hezb-i Islami/ of Afghanistan on this issue.

Mr. Chairman, esteemed colleagues,

Along with military aggression against the Republic of Artsakh, Azerbaijan together with Turkey has been engaged in a massive disinformation campaign trying to mislead the international public opinion and to promote the Turkish-Azerbaijani narrative about the aggression and the resulting situation, especially with regards to humanitarian aspect. I am not going to speak about fake photoshopped images of so-called cluster munitions allegedly used by Armenia, which are placed into a carefully drilled hole without even slightly damaging the area around the hole. I am not going to speak about video footage disseminated by the Azerbaijani propaganda gurus of allegedly Armenian attack on Mingechaur city, which later was removed after it was revealed that the footage was from the Israeli operation in Gaza in 2018. I am not going to speak about photos, claiming that Armenia allegedly using Israeli-made cluster munitions against Baku-Tbilisi-Jeihan pipeline, without giving proper consideration to the fact that Armenia does not have Israeli-made weapons. Even communist propaganda has had more finesse.

What can I say, while Azerbaijan resorts to propaganda tricks, Artsakh invites journalists from around the world to come and see the truth for themselves.

This propaganda machine works not only for the external but also for the internal audience. I find it deplorable when billboards in Baku show the footage of destruction of military hardware and bodies of killed people. This is the true nature of Aliyev’s regime, this is the true face of Azerbaijani and Turkish leaders, and I dare anyone to say that people of Artsakh should entrust their safety and security to Azerbaijan, and by extension, to Turkey.

And last but not least. Azerbaijan’s irresponsible and aggressive actions against Artsakh for the last 12 days, Turkey’s active involvement on the side of Azerbaijan, as well as transfer and deployment of terrorist fighters and jihadist groups in the conflict zone rolled back the peace process. It is paramount that Azerbaijan should immediately and without preconditions stop its military aggression.

Turkey should, immediately and without preconditions, withdraw its military personnel and equipment from Azerbaijan, and withdraw its culprits - jihadists and foreign terrorist fighters - from the region.

I would like to once again reiterate Armenia’s strong and unwavering commitment to exclusively peaceful resolution of the conflict. We also reiterate our support to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Personal Representative of Chairperson-in-Office and encourage them to redouble their efforts in implementing their mandate.

Thank you.

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