2023-09-22 04:42:44
After Azerbaijan conquered the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is predominantly inhabited by Armenians, the two countries made serious accusations against each other before the UN Security Council. While Armenia spoke of “ethnic cleansing” by its troops, Azerbaijan described its actions as an “anti-terror measure” before the most powerful body in the United Nations on Thursday. The United Nations, meanwhile, called for “real dialogue.”
Authoritarian-run Azerbaijan had been attacking the Nagorno-Karabakh region on its territory since Tuesday morning with rockets and artillery in an attempt to conquer it. On Wednesday, the militarily inferior Armenians gave up. Many of them now fear being driven from their homeland or, if they stay, becoming the target of Azerbaijani violence. According to Armenian media, at least 200 people have been killed and more than 400 injured in the fighting over the past few days.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan accused the government in Baku: “The intensity and cruelty of the offensive makes it clear that the intention is to complete the ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.” According to Mirzoyan, more than 10,000 people have been forcibly displaced, including women, children and the elderly, who are forced to live in the open without food or other provisions. Thousands of families were torn apart.
The situation had been alarming for a long time. But the international community has refused to take the warning signs seriously enough, complained the Armenian minister. The UN Security Council has not reacted appropriately in the past. “The rights and security of the Armenian people of Nagorno-Karabakh must be given due consideration and internationally guaranteed.”
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov countered: “What Armenia is trying to portray to the international community as an attack on peaceful residents of the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan are in fact anti-terror measures by Azerbaijan,” he said. There are thousands of Armenian units in the region. These are equipped with heavy weapons such as tanks and other armored vehicles, artillery pieces, multiple rocket launchers, mortars and electromagnetic weapons.
The Foreign Minister continued that these troops repeatedly shelled the Azerbaijani armed forces, fortified their fighting positions and built trenches and military shelters. As a result, there was an attack on them, with more than 90 outposts, 20 combat vehicles, 40 artillery pieces, 30 mortars and two anti-aircraft missile systems destroyed within 24 hours. Armenia alone bears responsibility for the incidents.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called for de-escalation: “What the people in the region need is a lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. And that can only be achieved at the negotiating table.”
An expulsion or forced migration of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh is unacceptable. At the same time, the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Armenia and Azerbaijan should not be called into question. German delegation circles in New York said it was regrettable “that Hungary was the only member state that was not prepared to support a joint EU declaration and blocked it.” There were discussions about sanctions that Germany would have been willing to accept.
The United Nations called for a “real dialogue between the government of Azerbaijan and representatives of the region” at the Security Council meeting. The top priority is to protect the civilian population. Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Dmitri Polyansky said that now it was necessary to “prevent a resumption of fighting and steer the situation back in a political direction.” The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia committed to de-escalation in telephone conversations with Vladimir Putin.
Christian Orthodox Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan, both ex-Soviet republics in the South Caucasus, have been enemies for a long time, although after a war in the early 1990s over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which belongs to Azerbaijan but is predominantly inhabited by Armenians, Armenia was initially the one had the upper hand. In a second war in 2020, Azerbaijan, which was heavily armed with money from the oil and gas business, won and recaptured parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and its own territory. In shorter military actions thereafter, Baku also occupied around 150 square kilometers of Armenian territory.
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