Envoy: Armenia, Artsakh fully support creation of investigative mechanism into ceasefire violations
Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) fully support the establishment of an investigative mechanism into ceasefire violations and expansion of monitoring capacities of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in Office in NK, Mher Margaryan, Minister Plenipotentiary, Armenia’s Deputy Permanent Representative in the UN, said in his speech delivered at a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday, May 22.
He stressed these measures would enable international community to investigate and verify all cases of ceasefire violations and human casualties as well as identify the party responsible.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres and ICRC Director-General Yves Daccord also addressed the UN open debate on the “Protection of civilians in armed conflict”, reflecting, among the others, on the issue of impunity and denialism of violation of human rights and the norms of international humanitarian law, highlighting the robust protection mechanisms, the Foreign Ministry’s press service told Panorama.am.
The Armenian official decried violations of the international humanitarian law, attaching importance to the full compliance with the international law, in particular with the Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols as a crucial framework for protection of civilians throughout conflicts, including humanitarian and medical personnel and reporters.
Mr Margaryan also noted that the international humanitarian law is included in the curricula of Armenia’s military educational institutions.
The Armenian envoy stressed that the civilian population of Artsakh and the bordering regions of Armenia have been consistently exposed to serious humanitarian risks by Azerbaijan.
He stressed Azerbaijan’s military aggression against Karabakh in April 2016 not only violated the 1994 ceasefire agreement but also incurred grave violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law, including barbaric acts commensurate to war crimes and crimes against humanity. “It inflicted losses amongst the civilian population, including children, women and elderly,” he said.
“What is also alarming is that the leadership of Azerbaijan continues to inject hatred against Armenians, a fact that has been confirmed and condemned by many human rights organisations and bodies, including by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in its concluding observation on the Azerbaijani report, published in 2016,” the official added.