1 / 1

“Dear colleagues, I was really quite sure that Azerbaijan will do its best to falsify once more the truth and facts here in the Council of Europe and stay unpunished and even not blamed on.

That's why I want to read two official press releases from the official website of the Ministry of Defense of the Republic of Armenia.

The first - on 29th of December, early in the morning, the Azerbaijani troops carried out a sabotage infiltration attempt in the direction of the Chinari village of the Tavush region of the Republic of Armenia, briefly crossing the south-eastern part of the Armenian state border.

And the second one - after the sabotage infiltration the Azerbaijani side made an official announcement, through which it attempted to shift the blame for the events onto the Armenian side in a characteristically absurd fashion.

The Azerbaijani attacking troops killed Armenian servicemen from behind, while the young men were washing up.

Dear colleagues, once more I need to draw your attention to the fact that the above-mentioned attack took place across the state border of the Republic of Armenia with Azerbaijan, not on the line of contact between Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, but precisely exactly on Armenian international border. By taking a political decision and then carried out this military action.

Azerbaijan, a Council of Europe member state, violated not only its obligations taken when it joined our organization, but also its obligations on the principle of good-faith negotiations in the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. Azerbaijan has committed violations of a number of principles of international law enshrined in the UN Charter, the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States, the 1975 Helsinki Final Act.

And, most importantly, Azerbaijan violated the European Convention of Human Rights, where first and foremost the supremacy of the right to life is enshrined.

Dear colleagues, the impunity for the crimes gives birth to new ones. The ignorance to the scourge in one part of Europe may encourage the violence in others. Hence, the joint and concerted actions are needed to eradicate it from everywhere once and forever. We all are here in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe to develop democratic values. And we do not have any right to keep our eyes closed on this kind of huge violations made by any member state.

We need to give proper answers to this kind of examples in order to make honour our assumed obligations, as CoE member states.”