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MP Taguhi Tovmasyan, chair of the Armenian parliament’s Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs, stresses the need for urgent solutions to the problems facing the displaced Artsakh Armenians. Below is her statement issued on Monday.

"During meetings with all my international colleagues, in daily discussions in various formats, I continuously present the disastrous situation created around the Artsakh Armenians, raising the urgent solution of such problems as the ones listed below.

The issues of Artsakh Armenians living in the territory of the Republic of Armenia should be solved by all possible means.

The people from Artsakh should live in their own houses in Armenia and adapt to a new life in their Homeland. Appartements should be bought for these people with the aid money given to Armenia for the resettlement of Artsakh Armenians. We must not allow them to emigrate.

Clear and visible efforts should be made for the health, education, maintenance (finding) and continuity of work of Artsakh Armenians

Observers with an international mandate should be deployed in Artsakh as soon as possible. In this way, we will try to preserve the property rights of Artsakh Armenians and neutralize the possibility of destruction of property belonging to Artsakh citizens and the state. Safeguards must also be maded so that people can safely withdraw or dispose of their own property as they wish.

Preservation of Armenian cultural and religious heritage is imperative. Both the Russian peacekeepers currently in Artsakh and the international observers should prevent the repetition of the criminal scenario of the desecration and destruction of the holy All-Savior Ghazanchetsots Church in Shushi and other Armenian religious buildings.

Armenian graves should be untouched and far from Azerbaijani atrocities.

If there are still Defense Army soldiers, former and current officials (with their families) in Artsakh, without targeting, they should either live in Artsakh without hindrance and safely, if they want, or leave without persecution. In RA or elsewhere, they should live without artificial obstacles and fictitious criminal prosecutions.

The freedom of Ruben Vardanyan, Levon Mnatsakanyan, Davit Manukyan, Davit Babayan and other captured compatriots is the task of all of us, the DAILY WORK.

We should all make efforts so that the condemning statements are replaced by clear actions to support the recognition of the Artsakh people's right to self-determination, which I have repeatedly spoken about from international areas, as well as specific sanctions must be applied to Azerbaijan as a genocidal, aggressor country.

We must make our voice heard in all parts of the world that Azerbaijan, which carried out the Artsakh Genocide with impunity, is trying to repeat the same scenario against the independent, sovereign Armenia. Azerbaijan is not returning the territories it has occupied from Armenia for 3 years and is still going unpunished...

I do not rely on the incompetent government of Nikol Pashinyan: all of us should work on these points for the sake of our people and homeland, which is seriously wounded."