A recent statement made by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Dunja Mijatovic, regarding the peaceful action held by the civil society organizations on the Khankendi-Lachin road is regrettable and overshadows the peace-building activities in the region, Sabina Aliyeva, the Commissioner for Human Rights in Azerbaijan, said Friday.
"Although it was expected that the Commissioner for Human Rights would demonstrate a more objective, impartial and fair attitude, on the contrary, opinions in her last statement are not reflecting the truth but also are of political nature, and overshadow the peace-building activities in the region," Aliyeva said.
"As I have indicated in my last statement on the issue in question, the peaceful civilians are seriously concerned about Armenia’s illegal exploitation of deposits of natural resources in the territories of Azerbaijan, where the Russian peacekeeping contingent was temporarily deployed, as well as its adverse environmental impacts. For that reason, the members of civil society hold peaceful action to grab the attention of the international community to this existing danger."
This peaceful action does not create any obstacles to the free passage of vehicles for humanitarian aid, Aliyeva said, adding that there are no obstacles to the delivery of necessary goods and medical care for the Armenian residents of the Karabakh economic region of Azerbaijan.
"I consider it a bias to express unfounded opinions against Azerbaijan regarding citizens’ protests against eco-terrorism, which violates the rights of people to live in a healthy environment. The commissioner did not respond to our repeated appeals regarding the war crimes committed by the military and political leadership of Armenia. This is a serious threat to human life caused by the mines during the occupation and post-war period, and the ecocide crimes," she maintained, calling for a neutral stand.
Representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia traded jabs at a United Nations meeting on Tuesday about a corridor Armenia has been using to access the Karabakh region on their shared border.
Armenia's U.N. envoy Mher Margaryan accused Azerbaijan of ''illegally blocking'' the Lachin corridor and ''denying humanitarian access'' to a region with an Armenian population, a claim Baku strongly denies.
He called on Azerbaijan ''to immediately and unconditionally'' unblock the corridor and urged the U.N. Security Council to deploy a fact-finding mission to assess the humanitarian situation on the ground.
Several recent incidents have raised tensions between the two countries. The latest involves demonstrations near a Russian peacekeeping post on the Lachin road where Azerbaijani activists are protesting the illegal exploitation of mineral resources and its environmental impact on the surrounding area. The Lachin road, located in the disputed region of Karabakh, is the only artery connecting Armenia to the region.
Earlier in December, Azerbaijan struck a deal with the Russian peacekeeping contingent following negotiations for its experts to probe the Kızılbulak gold mine and the Demirli copper mine on Azerbaijani lands housing Armenians because looting and illegal exploitation were observed in the region. However, Azerbaijani experts were prevented from entering the area by Armenians, which spurred the protest.
Azerbaijan's U.N. Ambassador Yashar Aliyev accused Armenia of exploiting the U.N. Security Council, accusing it of ''manipulation, distortion and falsification'' at the meeting called by Yerevan.
He said Armenia was ''misusing'' the corridor for the ''illicit trafficking'' of minerals and other resources and military activities.
''Besides being illegal per se, these activities cause serious damage to the environment, polluting the area and destroying the fragile ecosystem,'' he noted.
He said the abuse of the corridor makes up a breach of the trilateral agreements between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia.
“Under the Russian-brokered deal, Azerbaijan is committed to guaranteeing the security of people, vehicles, and cargo moving along the Lachin road,” Ambassador Aliyev told the council, stressing that neither the Azerbaijani government nor the protesting activists have blocked the pathway.
“Video clips shared on social media show the unimpeded passage of the various vehicles, including ambulances and humanitarian convoys,” Aliyev said.
“The claims regarding alleged humanitarian consequences of the situation are equally false. This is nothing beyond another manifestation of reckless manipulation by Armenia of the situation for obvious malign political purposes.”
The former Soviet countries have been locked in a decades-old conflict over the control of Karabakh, which was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but illegally occupied by Armenia for three decades until 2020.
Baku and Yerevan fought two wars over the territory in the 1990s and again in the autumn of 2020 when six weeks of particularly intense clashes saw over 6,500 deaths before a Russian-brokered truce ended the hostilities.
Under the 2020 deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had illegally occupied for decades and Russia stationed a force of 2,000 peacekeepers in the region to oversee a fragile truce after the three parties ratified the peacekeeping mission.
