Azerbaijan's permanent representative responds to Armenia's provocation in UN Security Council

Speaking at the meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Azerbaijan's Permanent Representative to the UN Yashar Aliyev expressed deep regret over the abuse of the Security Council by Armenia in connection with the campaign of manipulation, distortion and fraud. The ambassador strongly rejected all the accusations made against Azerbaijan by the Permanent Mission of Armenia to the UN, saying that they are completely false and groundless.

According to Report's local bureau, the envoy said this at a meeting chaired by India this month at the UN Security Council.

Yashar Aliyev stated that Karabakh, which Armenia and some members of the Council mistakenly call "Nagorno-Karabakh", is an internationally recognized sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, in the past tense under illegal Armenian occupation for almost 30 years, and this was consistently repeated in Security Council resolutions No. 822, 853, 874 and 884.

“The current legal name of this territory of Azerbaijan is the 'Karabakh economic region' or abbreviated as 'Karabakh region'. As for the situation around the Lachin road, Azerbaijan strongly denies all the claims of Armenia, which are absolutely false and groundless. The Lachin road is located entirely on the territory of Azerbaijan, on the territory of its Lachin district. This area was occupied by the Armenian Armed Forces in May 1992. The population of Lachn, numbering more than 77,000 people, was forced to flee their homes and property, and the city and surrounding villages were looted and burned by the Armenian army.

"Two years ago, after the 44-day war, in accordance with paragraph 6 of the Tripartite Statement of November 10, 2020, when the Lachin region was returned to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan undertook to guarantee the safety of people, vehicles and goods moving along the Lachin road,” the envoy said.

Azerbaijan will continue to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the rights and security of its citizens by all possible means in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and international law. Claims about the supposedly humanitarian consequences of the situation are also false. There are no obstacles to the supply of goods or essential health services to the local population in the region. This is nothing but another manifestation of Armenia's manipulation for clearly malicious political purposes.

The diplomat added that for more than two years, Armenia has been refusing to completely withdraw its armed forces and illegal armed formations from the territory of Azerbaijan, where the Russian peacekeeping contingent is temporarily stationed, in violation of paragraph 4 of the Tripartite Statement of November 10, 2020, and continues illegal military operations there.

“Armenia violates international law and the clauses of the Tripartite Statement, in addition to assumptions about the humanitarian significance of the Lachin road, actively uses it for military purposes, including for the rotation of personnel of the armed forces and the transfer of weapons to this area. Violating paragraph 1 of the Tripartite Statement, in which the parties pledged to cease all hostilities, Armenia not only refuses to share maps of the hundreds of thousands of mines it laid in the territory of Azerbaijan, but even in the post-conflict period, continues to lay new mines in the territory of Azerbaijan. Thus, since August of this year, more than 2,700 mines produced in Armenia in 2021 have been found on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan,” the permanent representative added.

“Last Wednesday, a landmine explosion in the Kalbajar district of Azerbaijan injured 7 people and killed one. The area where the incident took place was far from the old line of contact, and during the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Kalbajar district, they planted mines there. In total, after the signing of the Tripartite Statement, 276 citizens of Azerbaijan became victims of anti-personnel mines, of which 46 people, 35 civilians died. The result is clear - Armenia is trying to use all means to hinder Azerbaijan's efforts to restore and return hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons to their homes,” the diplomat continued.

Aliyev said that along with the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the historical lands of Azerbaijan, Armenia is carrying out ecological terror in the region.

“Armenia is stealing mineral deposits from the territory of Azerbaijan using the Lachin road. They grossly violate the norms of international law and the irrefutable and well-documented evidence of large-scale illegal economic activities in the previously occupied territory of Azerbaijan were repeatedly brought to the attention of the international community. Of the 151 mineral deposits discovered on these lands before the occupation, 52 were first exploited in 1993-2020. In addition to the illegal exploitation of the natural resources of a sovereign state, mining operations were carried out without sufficient environmental control, wastewater treatment and land reclamation, without observing environmental and technical standards,” he stressed.

In conclusion, Aliyev said that Azerbaijan is committed to regional peace, stability and development. The diplomat added that the establishment of friendly and neighborly relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the key to creating a secure, stable and prosperous South Caucasus through full-fledged regional normalization. Azerbaijan's position in this regard is clear, principled and consistent, based on international law and international practice. Immediately after the end of the conflict, Azerbaijan began the process of normalizing interstate relations with Armenia on the basis of mutual recognition and respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, including by signing a peace treaty within internationally recognized borders.