Armenian Ambassador to UN: Azerbaijan’s Actions Set Dangerous Precedent

“In addition to the direct explicit evidence of genocidal intent, as communicated by Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s leaders themselves, Azerbaijan’s goal of ethnically cleansing the indigenous Armenian population in Nagorno-Karabakh may be inferred from Azerbaijan’s commission of the following atrocity crimes: (1) inhuman treatment, torture, executions and beheadings of captive Armenian civilians; (2) torture, beheadings and mutilations of prisoners of war; (3) widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure; (4) destruction of cultural and religious heritage; and (5) hate speech by the Azerbaijani political leadership and public figures encouraging identity-based crimes against Armenians,” the letter said.

The top diplomat highlighted that throughout its offensive against Artsakh Azerbaijan deliberately targeted civilian sites.

“Azerbaijan has, indeed, waived any self-defence argument by its capture and torture of ethnic Armenian civilians, including humanitarian aid workers, before and after the 10 November 2020 ceasefire. The relevant reports by the Human Rights Defenders of Armenia and Artsakh contain abundant evidence documenting the barbaric atrocities committed by the Azerbaijani armed forces against captured ethnic Armenian civilians, detailing the torture, mutilation and killing of captured Armenian civilians, including after the 10 November 2020 ceasefire.

“Moreover, Azerbaijan’s atrocious treatment of Armenian prisoners of war – including mutilation, torture and beheadings – belies any “self-defense” argument. These are not acts of self-defense but acts of genocidal intent. As reported by several international sources and as documented in the Ombudsman’s reports, Azerbaijan committed multiple acts prohibited under the Third Geneva Convention, such as executions of Armenian soldiers by gunfire, decapitation of Armenian prisoners of war, deliberate execution of injured, non-resistant wounded soldiers, brutal execution of an alive, captured person, mutilation of the bodies of dead Armenian soldiers 10 and other inhumane acts and atrocities.

“The genocidal intent does not stop at the bodies of ethnic Armenian civilians and prisoners of war; it also seeks to destroy Armenian cultural heritage, while erasing any evidence of the more than 2,000-year-old Armenian civilizational presence. Notable examples of such cultural erasure involved the shelling of the Tigranakert archaeological site, the best-preserved city of the Hellenistic and Armenian civilizations of the Caucasus, as well as the targeted destruction of the Armenian cathedrals in Shushi, including the removal of the Armenian cross and rounded, pointed dome from the “Kanach Zham” (“Green Chapel”) Armenian Church of Saint John the Baptist.

“Despite Azerbaijan’s unsubstantiated claims that the ancient Christian cultural heritage in the region is not Armenian but rather exclusively “Caucasian Albanian”, such claims have not stopped Azerbaijan from destroying cultural heritage that it labels as “Caucasian Albanian”, as confirmed by Azerbaijan’s devastating campaign against the largest medieval Armenian cemetery in the world – the historical khachkars (cross-stones) in Old Jugha in Nakhichevan, destroyed by the Azerbaijani Government between 1997 and 2006. Notably, Azerbaijan not only denies such conduct – which was captured on video – but also denies the existence of this Armenian cultural heritage at all, in line with Azerbaijan’s genocidal indoctrination directed against ethnic Armenians and Armenian culture and history.