According to the ECHR's ruling of June 16, Armenia is and has been, since "early on" in the conflict, responsible for the aggression against and the occupation of almost 5,000 square miles of Azerbaijani territory.

Nagorno-Karabakh "seceded" in 1988 from Azerbaijan with Armenia's help and support. Isolated killings by Armenians in February 1988 mushroomed into full-blown war between Armenia and Azerbaijan after they both declared independence from the crumbling Soviet Union. The existing cease-fire was signed in 1994.

Charged with aggression by Azerbaijan from the beginning of the killing, Armenia has officially denied having anything to do with the conflict. It has stated all along that the conflict was between Nagorno-Karabakh rebels seceding from Azerbaijan that "just happened" to be Armenian by ethnicity.

Armenia offered that same defense in the ECHR court case. 

This is an excerpt from the court's press release; it places blame on Armenia for the aggression that resulted in the illegal occupation of almost 5,000 square miles of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory:

The district of Lachin [entirely within Azerbaijan and 90 percent Azerbaijani by ethnicity and nationality] was attacked many times during the war. The applicants [plaintiffs] alleged that troops of both Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia were at the origin of the attacks. The Armenian Government maintained, however, that Armenia did not participate in the events, but that the military action was carried out by the defence forces of Nagorno-Karabakh and volunteer groups. ...

The court noted in particular that numerous reports and public statements including from members and former members of the Armenian Government, demonstrated that Armenia, through its military presence and by providing military equipment and expertise, had been significantly involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from an early date. Armenia's military support continued to be decisive for the control over the territories in question. ...

[Nagorno-Karabakh] and its administration survived by virtue of the military, political, financial and other support given to it by Armenia. Armenia thus exercised effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories.

The occupied territories, according to an inventory in Thomas de Waal's book, Black Garden, include the Nagorno-Karabakh region and full and/or partial occupation of seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, totaling almost 5,000 square miles.

The Armenian fiction that Armenia has never been involved in the Karabakh war, which has produced one of the largest displacement of people (refugees) since World War II in Europe, has been found to untruthful. The European court has cut the propaganda legs out from Armenia.

The ECHR has ruled that Armenia was in total control of the war of aggression against Azerbaijan, which resulted in over 20,000 dead and over 1 million refugees, many of which are still being housed, assisted and supported by the Azerbaijan government.

Armenian apologists will try to divert attention from this devastating court decision that squarely blames Armenia for the war and the occupation of Azerbaijan territory by pointing to a minor property decision (Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan) the court made the same day, in which it ruled that Azerbaijan has kept the complainant from returning to his mined-with-explosives property on the cease-fire line between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in Karabakh.

That is the same as comparing a parking ticket morally or legally to a hit-and-run of 10 people at a bus stop.

For 25 years, Armenia has financed and provided weaponry, soldiers and political support to a ragtag gang of secessionists from the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. War crimes of all sorts and sizes in an aggressive war of occupation have been committed by Armenian troops and their vassal gangs in Karabakh. There is, for example, the well-documented (by Human Rights Watch) massacre of over 600 men, women and children at Khojaly committed by Armenian soldiers on Feb. 26, 1992.

Armenia's participation in the 25 years of war has been thoroughly documented and/or admitted to by Armenian officials, as noted by this court.

Armenian apologists have insisted in the pages of The Hill that if those are the charges, why hasn't Azerbaijan taken them to court?

Well, it has. Though the court took 10 years to adjudicate the case, it decided that Armenia was guilty of command and control of the invasion and occupation of 5,000 square miles of sovereign Azerbaijan territory. In so doing, it directly found Armenia guilty of lying and aggressively making war on Azerbaijan.

Armenia? Guilty as charged.

NOTE: Contreras formerly was syndicated by Creators Syndicate and wrote for the New America News Service of The New York Times Syndicate.

 

(The Hill)