Monday, May 15 2023 16:37

ArmInfo. The Western world continues to disregard the blockade of Artsakh and is granting  Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev near complete impunity to do as he pleases with the 4000-year-old indigenous Armenian community that has never before been under Azerbaijani control.

This is stated in an open letter from the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocides  to the President of the European Council Charles Michel, which was sent on the eve of the Brussels meeting of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan mediated by the EU.

The full text of the letter is below.

"Dear Mr. Charles Michel, On behalf of the Lemkin Institute for  Genocide Prevention, a grassroots advocacy organization based in the  U.S. dedicated to ending the cycle of violence and promoting long  lasting peace, we write to you concerning the upcoming tripartite  meeting to be held on May 14th in Brussel between yourself, Armenian  Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev. 

The EU-hosted meeting will discuss the ongoing blockade of the region  of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) since last December 12 and the recent  establishment of a checkpoint by Azerbaijani authorities. 

On April 23rd , Azerbaijan erected an illegal checkpoint on the only  road linking the Armenian enclave to the outside world. Nearby routes  have been heavily militarized, jeopardizing and therefore impeding  the safe travel of civilians. This illegal checkpoint joins  Azerbaijan's March 2023 blockade of the Goris-Stepanakert highway and  the December 2022 blockade of Lachin to ensure that the bare minimum  of supplies get to the Armenians of Artsakh. 

The Lemkin Institute wishes to remind the President of the European  Council that both the blockade and the checkpoint are in violation of  Point 6 of the 2020 Tripartite Agreement that ended the 44 Day War.  Additionally, Azerbaijan continues to blatantly disregard and fails  to comply with the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) legally  binding decision on provisional measures issued on February 22, 2023,  which ordered Azeri authorities to ensure free movement of goods and  people through the Lachin Corridor. 

The Lemkin Institute highlights that this blockade represents a clear  existential threat to the 120,000 ethnic Armenians stuck in the  breakaway area. Their lives are endangered by a hostile neighbor  whose intentions are clear: to wipe out all traces of Armenian life  and of an Armenian presence in this region. Azerbaijani President,  Ilham Aliyev, has consistently and repeatedly stated that he intends  to eradicate the indigenous Armenians dwelling in Artsakh. During the  2020 war he said, "If they don't leave on their own, we'll chase them  out like dogs." He is supported in his genocidal pursuits by his  Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Both countries  aim to weaken Artsakh Armenians through these genocidal threats,  including the threats of starvation, exposure, and ethnically  motivated violence, so that they are terrorized and leave their  historical land. Let us remember that the region of Artsakh has been  inhabited by a majority Armenian population throughout history  despite the region's incorporation into various empires over the  centuries. Local leadership, language, and culture has remained  unshakably and profoundly Armenian. 

The Western world continues to disregard the blockade of Artsakh and  is granting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev near complete impunity  to do as he pleases with the 4000-year-old indigenous Armenian  community that has never before been under Azerbaijani control. The  European Union, which prides itself on its unwavering commitment and  support for democracies such as Armenia, is turning a blind eye to  the Azerbaijani dictatorship for geopolitical and resource reasons. 

The Lemkin Institute fears that this position will lead [the European  Union] to sponsor a forcible "coordinated" transfer of the Armenian  population of Artsakh to Armenia proper.  The forced transfer of the  Armenians of Artsakh would constitute a violation of the right to  self-determination, a fundamental pillar of the current legal order  of the international community, and a fundamental right that the  Armenians of Artsakh have been exercising long before the 1991  referendum that finally established the appropriate political  institutions for self-governance. Likewise, the forced transfer would  also constitute-at the very least-the crime against humanity of  deportation. It would also arguably fall within the definition of the  crime of genocide, as it would imply applying measures that would  cause the total eradication of the autochthonous/indigenous  population of the land where they have built their cultural identity  and traditions. 

Such a course of action is no solution and must not be discussed  during [the peace talks in Brussels], lest the European Union and its  representatives end up complicit in genocide, according to Article  III(e) of the Genocide Convention. Any accord brokered by the  European Union on Sunday that includes the forcible displacement of  Artsakhsis to Armenia will amount to a plan for genocide, which  should be tried in an international court. Peoples of the world can  no longer afford to let complicity in genocide go unpunished."