By Shoghik Galstian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Exiled activists from Nagorno-Karabakh have threatened to sue the Armenian government if it does withdraw its lawsuits filed against Azerbaijan since the 2020 Karabakh war.
The government announced plans to do so after accepting last week Azerbaijan’s proposals regarding the two remaining articles of a draft peace treaty that were not yet agreed upon by the two sides. In particular, Yerevan agreed to the mutual withdrawal of international lawsuits filed by the two South Caucasus countries against each other. It had previously voiced reservations about such a move demanded by the Azerbaijani side.
Artak Beglaryan, Karabakh’s former premier and human rights ombudsman now based in Yerevan, condemned over the weekend the apparent Armenian concession to Baku as a further blow to Karabakh’s population that fled the region following Azerbaijan’s September 2023 offensive. He said it means that “the Armenian authorities will equally share responsibility for violating our rights and eliminating opportunities to protect our rights.”
Beglaryan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that he and other Karabakh Armenians are therefore planning to file individual lawsuits, presumably with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), against Armenia and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in particular. He said they would not do so if the peace treaty finalized by Baku and Yerevan addressed the issues of the release of Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani “war crimes,” the Karabakh Armenians’ right to safely return to their homeland and protection of their properties and cultural heritage.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Friday, March 14, that the treaty will also commit the two sides to “not to file in the future claims regarding issues that existed between the parties prior to its signing.” Beglaryan decried this provision as well, saying that it deprives the Karabakh refugees of legal avenues of fighting for their safe repatriation.
