Civilian Protection Tops The Agenda Of UN Security Council

At the Security Council session statements were made by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Undersecretary for Humanitarian Issues John Holmes, as well as by all fifteen members of the Security Council. In the debates, which lasted till late, participated also the representatives of over forty-seven UN member states, including Sweden on behalf of the EU, Norway, Switzerland, Brazil, Argentine, Canada, Germany, Egypt, Israel, India, Afghanistan, South Africa, Tanzania, Syria, Iran, South Korea, Georgia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and others.

All speakers stressed the importance of the issue of protecting civilian population in armed conflicts and with this regard a significant role assigned to the United Nations and the Security Council in particular. This is still a pressing issue since in the armed conflicts in different parts of the world it is mostly civilian population which suffers, predominantly women, children, and elderly.

The Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan, Ambassador Mehdiev spoke about the so-called “killings” by the Armenian forces of the civilian population of Khojalu, which allegedly took place in 1992. He also said that as a result of this incident and aggression of neighboring Armenia, after which part of Azerbaijani territory was occupied and hundred thousands of Azerbaijanis became internally displaced persons and refugees, the Security Council adopted a number of resolutions in 1993.

The statement of the Azerbaijan Ambassador was followed by the statement of the Permanent Representative of Armenia to the UN, Ambassador Garen Nazarian. In his intervention he mentioned, in particular, that his participation in the debated was stipulated by the necessity to divulge planned ethnic cleansing and killings of the Armenians in Azerbaijan, which preceded the eruption of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Ambassador Nazarian reflected also on the Azerbaijani Ambassador’s statement in the UN Security Council regarding the events in Khojalu, noting that according to the testimony provided by the then President Mutalibov, the entire Khojalu plot was organized by the Azerbaijani opposition to blame the official Baku for the murder of its own population and under that pretext to stage a coup.

The Permanent Representative of Armenia accused Azerbaijan of gross violations of humanitarian law and human rights and noted that the adventurist politics of Baku to resolve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict through violent means resulted in an unpredictable and dire outcome for Azerbaijan. Ambassador Nazarian also said that it was only Armenia’s timely intervention that stopped the Azeri aggression and saved the people of Nagorno Karabakh from being massacred or expelled from their ancestral home.

Armenia joined other speakers in highlighting the importance of fortifying the role of the UN Security Council, rule of law, and stimulating instruments and mechanism of international law and criminal justice in protecting civilians in armed conflicts.

Source: Panorama.am
Armenian Mission in UN