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The Secretary General of the European Ombudsman Institute Mr. Josef Siegele has expressed concerns over the violence towards civilian settlements along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

As Armenia’s Ombudsman’s Office reports, in a released statement on Friday, the European Ombudsman Institute said it is guided exclusively by human rights principles strongly urges both sides to protect peaceful settlements and to refrain immediately from using fires and shelling towards civilian population, without political acting.

“We are especially concerned by yesterday’s official statement of the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan that they may launch missile attacks on the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) of Armenia. This statement is a clear threat to civilians and it may cause a humanitarian disaster. These kinds of statements undermine the international human rights system. The international humanitarian law has absolute prohibition for this kind of intimidation towards the civilian population,” the statement read in part.

It is noted that human rights are universal; they should be protected globally - whether Europe, Asia, Americas or any other place in the world and mediations of Ombudspersons with political decision-makers of their countries should have continuous aims to protect civilian populations of both countries and to act in the sense of executing human rights in this difficult situation.