Statement delivered by Ambassador Armen Papikyan at the 1285th PC meeting on the Aggression of Azerbaijan against Artsakh and Armenia with the Direct Involvement of Turkey and Foreign Terrorist Fighters

16 October, 2020

I would like to begin by informing the participating States that as of yesterday, the indiscriminate shelling of Stepanakert by Azerbaijani armed forces continued. Furthermore, a video with the execution of unarmed prisoners of war by the Azerbaijani armed forces surfaced. We will present the evidence of this war crime in due course.

Into the third week of the violent war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Artsakh, it is already evident that the planned blitzkrieg has failed. We can also safely assume that Azerbaijan would not have started this war in the first place, had it not the full military and political support and engagement of Turkey, along with its foreign terrorist fighters and jihadist groups.

After our last PC meeting, on 9th of October upon the initiative of the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan held extensive talks, which lasted around 11 hours. The Foreign Ministers agreed on establishing a humanitarian truce and issued a joint statement to this effect. We believe that arrangement raised hopes that there would be at least a short reprieve from this bloody war. The Armenian Government and the Armenian people have been cautiously optimistic in this regard. They knew from numerous past experiences that Azerbaijani agreement on something at the negotiations table means next to nothing as it would be later repudiated and not respected.

Unfortunately, we were proven right. The armed hostilities and attacks along the entire line of contact continued unabated. In spite of the announced truce, the northern, southern, south-eastern, and eastern directions of the Line of Contact were constantly shelled by the Azerbaijani side using missiles, heavy artillery, combat UAVs and in recent days the combat aviation as well. Along with the shelling, the Azerbaijani forces carried out multiple offensive ground operations with the use of armoured vehicles and deploying large numbers of troops and foreign terrorist fighters. On October 13 only, the Azerbaijani air forces with the backing and support of the Turkish air forces, including through providing air control and intelligence information, carried out 36 combat missions.

Azerbaijani armed forces continued to shell the civilian settlements as well, notwithstanding the humanitarian truce. The capital Stepanakert, as well as cities of Shushi, Martakert, Askeran, Martuni and Hadrut were under constant fire. Moreover, on October 10, just before the truce came into effect, the Azerbaijani special ops unit infiltrated the city of Hadrut, where the head of the local self-government together with the local population defended the civilians against this assault for a couple of hours. Unfortunately, there were 5 civilian casualties among the residents of the city, including a young disabled man and his mother.

Yesterday, the Azerbaijani armed forces targeted the hospital in the north-eastern direction, where alongside with the wounded military personnel civilians were also treated. There were reports of casualties. This latest attack of Azerbaijan is yet another war crime that violates the international humanitarian law which explicitly prohibits targeting of hospitals.

These attacks were indiscriminate and pursued one purpose - to inflict as much damage as possible, including by causing civilian deaths.

As a result of Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression the civilian population and infrastructure were severely affected. According to the second report of Artsakh’s Human Rights Ombudsman, as of October 13 there were 31 civilians killed, 106 wounded, 6700 private immovable property, 640 private movable property, 1110 infrastructure, including schools and kindergartens, as well as public and industrial objects have been damaged or destroyed. These numbers do not include the casualties and the damage from the attack on the hospital that I have mentioned.

Furthermore, tens of thousands of children, women, elderly, persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups live in conditions of constant security threats and psychological terror, with certain deprivations of basic rights and conditions, such as food, healthcare, education etc.

To illustrate the scale of bombardments and shelling of civilian settlements and infrastructure, I’ll bring just one example: the Sapper Squads of the Rescue Service of the Artsakh State Emergency Service, in capital Stepanakert alone, found approximately 673 unexploded Turkish and Israeli made rockets, cluster and other combat munitions.

I shall also specifically mention that starting from September 27 onwards Azerbaijan periodically attacked the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia as well. The last such incident happened yesterday, when Azerbaijani side attacked the military equipment on duty in the territory of Armenia under the pretext of claiming that it might supposedly be used against Azerbaijani cities. Moreover, as result of another separate Azerbaijani attack on civilian population in Armenia’s eastern Vardenis region, a 14 years old boy was severely wounded, and he is now in the hospital in Yerevan in an intensive care unit.

It is clear that with such irresponsible behaviour Azerbaijan supported by Turkey seeks to expand the geography of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, by attacking and resorting to open aggression against the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia.

Up until now Armenia did not retaliate in order to avoid further escalation. But already yesterday the Ministry of Defence of Armenia issued a statement, where while reaffirming that no missile, projectile or even a bullet had been shot at Azerbaijan from the territory of Armenia, declared that the Armed Forces of Armenia reserve the right to retaliate against any military object of Azerbaijan based on the same logic of actions.

Esteemed colleagues,

On October 13, the Co-Chairs of the Minsk Group issued another statement following their meetings with the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Azerbaijan calling to respect the humanitarian truce and to work on establishment of ceasefire verification mechanisms.

The introduction of verification mechanisms, to which Azerbaijan opposes, will help monitor the ceasefire and maintain that regime. This is not the first time we have talked about this. Given the almost daily allegations of Azerbaijan on supposed violation of the truce by Armenia and Artsakh, we believe that it is the right time to start working on these verification mechanisms. There have been many proposals to this end. It should have been done a long time ago, but up until now Azerbaijan rejected it.

The international community not only continued but I would say intensified its calls for cessation of hostilities. We would like to once again express our gratitude to our international partners for their firm position, which echoes the approach of Armenia that there is no military solution to the conflict and only negotiated settlement will be sustainable and lasting. We would like to thank the Co-Chair countries for their continuous engagement and efforts to resuscitate the peace process without any preconditions.

However, Armenia has repeatedly stated in the past that in order to have a meaningful dialogue and negotiation process first and foremost we should stop the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and second permanently remove any possibility of use of force or threat of force from the equation. Which, unfortunately, is not the case at the moment.

Mr. Chairman,

In the 18 days that passed Azerbaijan used the whole military arsenal at its disposal, and as I have already said, it would not have been possible without Turkey’s support and involvement. As of October 15, the Defence Army of Artsakh destroyed 180 UAVs, 16 combat helicopters, 20 jets, 546 armoured vehicles, 4 multiple rocket launch systems. I am not a military expert but the deployment of such large numbers of heavy military equipment of exclusively offensive nature is rather unprecedented and clearly and loudly speaks about the intentions of Azerbaijani and Turkish leaders, which wages an all-out war against the people of Artsakh.

The active engagement of Turkey in the hostilities with each passing day becomes more and more evident. We all perfectly recall how vehemently Azerbaijani and Turkish delegations here denied Armenia’s assertion about Turkish F16s in Azerbaijan and their combat deployment to provide air support to Azerbaijani armed forces, echoing the same denials made at the high political level in Baku. Then, in the face of irrefutable evidence about F16s in the Gyanja airport, we have seen how the Azerbaijani president was forced to publicly acknowledge the presence of F16s.

Turkish F16 fighter jets provided air support and backing for Azerbaijani SU25 fighter jets as well as to combat UAVs in aerial attacks including against cities and villages of Artsakh. As I already said, only in one day they have carried out 36 combat missions, which speaks about the intensity of air combat operations.

Aside from the military support, the Turkish side continues to be actively engaged in the political decision making in Baku. In fact, Azerbaijan has become a proxy state and is not in a position of taking decisions without the consent of Ankara. After agreeing to a truce in Moscow and upon his return to Baku the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan received a call from his Turkish colleague and right after that call, Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan stated that the “conditions for implementing the humanitarian cease-fire are currently missing” and refuted his own agreement to a ceasefire. In the last week we also saw how Turkey’s leaders, in spite of the Moscow statement on humanitarian truce and numerous efforts of international mediators, continued to instigate Azerbaijan to carry on its military offensive. Therefore, we could safely assume that today Turkey has become the main obstacle for the cessation of hostilities.

To the knowledge of esteemed delegations, yesterday, Turkey closed its airspace for the transit of humanitarian flights to Armenia.

The irrefutable fact of Turkey’s direct involvement in the military hostilities has been once again acknowledged by the European Court of Human Rights. To recall, on October 6 the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) upon request from the Government of Armenia decided to apply interim measures against Turkey in respect of Article 1 (Right to Life) and Article 3 (Prohibition of Torture) of the European Convention of Human Rights. On October 7, the Government of Turkey applied to the ECHR demanding to change the decision. Yesterday, the ECHR, having examined the objections of the Turkish governments and taking into account the serious and escalating nature of the conflict, did not find any reason to amend its decision or to lift any part of the interim measure previously indicated.

We have already talked extensively about Turkey’s political and military objectives, which Turkish leaders hope to achieve at the hands of Azerbaijan, and I should not repeat this. We already said that Azerbaijani people became victims in the hands of Azerbaijani and Turkish ruling elite by paying a high price of lost lives to cement the authoritarian rule of Aliev’s family and to contribute to the ambitions of Turkish leadership in reviving the Ottoman empire.

Mr. Chairman,

I would like to now refer to another specific aspect of this war against Artsakh - the involvement of foreign terrorist fighters on the part of Azerbaijan in the military hostilities. According to various reports there are around 4000 terrorist fighters on the ground involved in the armed hostilities and fighting, while as of October 5 the death of 107 of them has been confirmed.

When this delegation first referred to the report of recruitment by Turkey of foreign terrorist fighters and jihadists from Syria and Libya and their subsequent transfer to Azerbaijan, both the Azerbaijani and Turkish delegations, once again echoing their high-level leadership in capitals, vehemently denied what they called “unfounded accusations” by Armenia. In the last three weeks these reports were confirmed by numerous accounts from terrorists themselves, as well as by intelligence and journalistic sources. We have seen several video footages disseminated on social media and the internet. Aside from financial incentive, there was also another motive that came out: the terrorists are willing to fight Turkey’s battles to return the favour. This is a dangerous development indeed, when we have an OSCE participating State which enjoys and instrumentalize the loyalty of terrorist and jihadist groups. Today, it could be said that Turkey through its recruitment scheme is financing the terrorists and contributes to proliferation of terrorist groups and terrorist fighters into different regions and parts of the world. Due to the sense of loyalty, these groups are becoming the proxy army of Turkey to be deployed in various parts of the world where open and direct involvement of armed forces might raise eyebrows. Syria, Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, the question is, who is the next?

It is deplorable to say the least, that two participating states of the Organisation, and member states of the Council of Europe openly, unapologetically and without hesitation are recruiting and deploying foreign terrorist fighters in the area of responsibility of the OSCE - in stark defiance of all international norms and principles, let alone values that allegedly they are sharing with civilized world. The fact is, that today the people of Artsakh and Armenia are fighting against international terrorism, against states that do not shy using terrorist and jihadist fighters.

We would like to see more forceful and addressed denunciation by the international community of this behaviour. We would like to see more targeted measures that would force Turkey and Azerbaijan to renounce these policies.

Mr. Chairman,

With this latest aggression, or I should say the all-out war against Artsakh and its people, Azerbaijan proved beyond any doubt that Artsakh can never under any circumstances in any manner be part of Azerbaijan. Only international recognition of the right of the people of Artsakh for self-determination and subsequent independence would provide necessary political and legal framework for ensuring the safety and security of the people of Artsakh. We call on all OSCE participating States to consider this issue with the understanding of all the horrendous consequences of the war unleashed by Azerbaijan with the support and engagement of Turkey and involvement of foreign terrorist fighters.

I have already stated on previous occasions we are raising the current issue for the attention of 54 participating States.

We see no added value in engaging in back and forth exercise of lengthy and putative discussion with either Turkey or Azerbaijan- countries which are openly supporting terrorists and jihadists. That would be a waste of time. I think participating states would agree that talking to countries which strive to resolve problems exclusively by force, that use foreign terrorist fighters to fight their battles has no merit.

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