2023-08-09 19:18:34
KORNIDZOR, Armenia (AP) — The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has warned that Azerbaijan is preparing a genocide against Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh region and has called on the United Nations Security Council to bring the issue before the court.
The report by Luis Moreno Ocampo issued on Tuesday says that the blockade applied by Azerbaijan to the only road that links Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh prevents the shipment of food, medical supplies and other basic items to the region of some 120,000 inhabitants.
“There are reasons to believe that genocide is being perpetrated,” the Ocampo report says, noting that a UN convention defines genocide as “the intentional imposition of living conditions against a group calculated to bring about their physical destruction.”
“There are no crematoriums or machete attacks. The invisible weapon for genocide in this case is famine. Without immediate drastic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed within a few weeks,” the report says.
Nagorno-Karabakh is a region within Azerbaijan that fell under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenian forces in a separatist conflict that ended in 1994. Armenian forces also gained control of substantial territory around the region.
Azerbaijan regained control of the surrounding territory in a six-week war against Armenia in 2020. A Russian-brokered armistice left the regional capital, Stepanakert, linked to Armenia by a single pathway known as the Lachin Corridor, in which the forces allegedly Russian companies had to guarantee free transit.
A government representative in Azerbaijan rejected the report by Ocampo, who was the ICC’s first prosecutor, stating that it “contains unfounded allegations and accusations.”
“He is biased and distorts the truth situation on the ground, and has serious factual, legal and substantive errors,” Hikmet Hajiyev, an aide to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
In December, crowds claiming to be environmental activists clogged the Lachin Corridor. Azerbaijan then set up a military checkpoint on the road, saying it was necessary to block traffic to prevent the smuggling of weapons and other goods.
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Contributing to this story were correspondents Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, and Aida Sultanova in London.
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