Baku responds to Nalbandian

"Calling on the international community from the UN tribune to combat terrorism, the Armenian foreign minister should first present his country’s "experience and example” in this regard,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmet Hajiyev said in his comments on Armenian FM Edward Nalbandyan’s speech at the meeting of the UN human rights council.

 

According to him, the UN human rights council is of the most proper places for the Armenian FM to admit his country’s responsibility for the Khojaly massacre committed by Armenia’s political and military leadership.

 

"The Armenians have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide that need considering at the UN human rights council. Speaking of terrorist threat in the Middle East, the Armenian FM should have also mentioned the role of ASALA and other Armenian terrorist organizations which were created in this particular region and integrated into Armenian special service agencies after the country gained independence and have so far carried out large-scale terrorist acts. More than 30 terrorist acts were carried out in Azerbaijan with the direct participation of Armenian special service authorities. Armenian terrorists, including Monte Melkonyan, have been elevated to the level of Armenian national hero and their "heroism” were included into school books,” he stressed.

 

H. Hajiyev said the Armenian FM must have meant the atrocities committed by the Armenians in occupied Azerbaijani territories by saying, "the destruction of cultural monuments after committing ethnic cleansing is an attempt to erase the memory of mankind and annihilate civilizations aged thousands of years”. 

 

"Because the Armenian FM’s statements coincide with the acts of genocide committed by Armenia against Azerbaijan’s material-cultural monuments and religious heritage in occupied lands and Armenian territories. In his speech at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, home to international humanitarian law, the Armenian FM was to clarify his country’s interference in exchange of information about the prisoners of war and missing persons according to the proposals of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. The resolution entitled "Missing persons” adopted by the UN General Assembly on 18 December 2014 urges the conflicting parties to share information on missing persons and assist to determine the place of the war victims or their remnants. 

 

More than 4,000 Azerbaijanis went missing as a result of the Armenian aggression, and the Republic of Armenia bears full responsibility for their fates. Armenia also has commitments to international law regarding providing such information based on the Geneva conventions. Modern forensic sciences, especially DNA analysis, would have contributed to the identification of persons killed in masses and buried in Armenia and occupied territories, consequently leading to learning the fates of missing people.