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The Autumn Meeting of the 30^th Annual Session of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) took place in Vancouver, Canada. The Member of the delegation of the National Assembly to the OSCE PA Maria Karapetyan delivered a speech at the Meeting of the General Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment.

“Dear colleagues,

I would like to start by acknowledging the work of our rapporteur Ms. Kugler. I want to underline a specific idea she mentioned in the presentation of the report. She said that, as we talk about problems in the area of economy and environment, we need to make sure that these do not generate anxiety and cause the withdrawal of our citizens. And we need to make sure that we generate also enough optimism so that we seek solutions together. I think this is a very important conceptual approach, and I wanted to underline that for a moment.

I would like also to talk to you about the situation in the South Caucasus. Armenia and Azerbaijan are conducting peace talks, as you know. The goal that Armenia pursues in these peace talks is the signing of a peace treaty with which Armenia and Azerbaijan will mutually recognize each other’s territorial integrity based on their internationally recognized borders.

Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan including Nagorno-Karabakh with the understanding that the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh need to be discussed in a dialogue between Baku and the representatives of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh with international presence for such a dialogue.

Meanwhile, it has been seven months since Azerbaijan keeps the Lachin corridor blocked. That means that the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are completely surrounded by the Russians peacekeepers and the Azerbaijani army. A week ago, Azerbaijan installed blocks made of concrete on the road in the Lachin corridor. There is footage of this on the internet.

Currently, the flow of humanitarian aid to Nagorno-Karabakh has stopped as well. No gas, no electricity, and no replenishment of food and medical supply. Patients in critical conditions and in need of medical services that are not available in Nagorno-Karabakh also cannot be transported. And there is no international presence to document and address all of this.

This is a humanitarian crisis that also has many other dimensions to it, among them environmental and economic. To illustrate the situation in very simple terms, people in Nagorno-Karabakh are not buying and selling things for already seven months; they are simply waiting in their homes for food to arrive. The life of people is at a standstill there and under the constant threat of attack.

As desperate as this situation is, our position in Armenia is that we will not be provoked and discouraged from the peace talks by this. We will continue to engage in good faith and with political will to bring stability and peace to the South Caucasus. For this, we need sustained international support to contain Azerbaijan’s aggressiveness. After all the hardships that the people of the South Caucasus have gone through in the past decades, there is a historic chance to establish peace between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan,” the deputy noted.