Monday, December 11 2023 12:40

ArmInfo. Over 120 political parties, NGOs, media outlets, and heads of local government bodies of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) signed an appeal to the international community on the occasion of the Day of the Referendum on Independence, the Constitution Day of the Republic of Artsakh, and the 75th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights marked on 10 December.

Addressees: UN Secretary General, Members of the UN Security Council,  OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group,  Council of Europe (Secretary General, PACE President, Chairman of the  Committee of Ministers), President of the European Council, President  of the European Commission, President of the European Parliament, CIS  Secretary General, CSTO Secretary General, NATO Secretary General.

A free people cannot renounce its sovereign rights and submit to the  rule of an alien state, especially one ruled for many years by an  authoritarian, corrupt and racist regime, intoxicated by its  impunity.

Our collective decision to leave our Homeland - the Republic of  Artsakh (the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic), our homes, our Armenian  churches, leaving behind the relics of Saint John the Baptist (Surb  Hovhannes Mkrtich) and the graves of our ancestors, which we have  protected for centuries, is the proof to the whole world that freedom  is the highest value for the people of Artsakh. We have made this  forced decision amidst ongoing genocidal actions and looming serious  existential threats.

We made this decision because those who call themselves champions and  defenders of freedom and human rights decided to deny us our right to  live with dignity in our homeland and our right to  self-determination, thus aiming to achieve an imaginary peace between  Armenia and Azerbaijan and for the sake of their own geopolitical  interests.

We left because it was the only way to guarantee our safety and  preserve our human and national dignity and our gene pool, expose the  big lie, on which the political idea of unilateral and forceful  resolution of the conflict was based, by forcing us and our children  to accept citizenship and swear allegiance to the regime that hates  us.

For more than three decades, we have defended with all our might our  children's right to peace and free development. We opposed the  political deals that were offered to us at the expense of our  sovereign right to live in our Homeland, won at the cost of lives and  enormous sacrifices of many generations during the long centuries of  struggle to preserve our national dignity and identity. And this  struggle is not over. We are confident that we will regain our  Motherland with the power of truth and justice.

For those who think that the world can be ruled by lies and brute  force, we repeat the following:

The Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) was proclaimed on September 2,  1991, by the legitimate authorities of the Nagorno Karabakh  Autonomous Region (NKAO) and the Shahumyan Region of the Azerbaijani  Soviet Social Republic, when the authorities of the latter announced  their decision to secede from the USSR. The political Declaration on  proclamation of the NKR was based on the legal norm of the Soviet law  in force at that time and the will of the Artsakh people, expressed  in a national referendum. Our right to self-determination was  recognized even by the authorities of Soviet Russia and Azerbaijan in  1920, and became the basis for creation of the Nagorno-Karabakh  Autonomous Region in 1923, was enshrined in the constitution of the  USSR, the constitution of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic  and its law "On NKAO", and was preserved in the Law "Concerning the  procedure of secession of a Soviet Republic from the USSR" of April  3, 1990, and is also based on the UN Charter and the International  Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966. The referendum of  December 10, 1991, confirmed that the absolute majority of voters  supported the decision to declare the independence of our Republic.  The legitimate parliament, elected according to democratic standards  and in the conditions of a genocidal siege and armed aggression,  adopted on January 6, 1992 the Declaration of Independence of the  Nagorno Karabakh Republic, Artsakh.  Thousands of our compatriots  paid for this choice with their lives. 

In 1992, all CSCE/OSCE member states recognized the right of elected  representatives of Nagorno- Karabakh to participate in the OSCE  international conference mandated to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh  conflict. In a referendum in 2006, our people approved the  Constitution of the Republic, which defined the procedure for  electing legitimate representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and their  powers; in 2017, again in a referendum, the people approved a new  Constitution. This Constitution was and remains the only fundamental  document by which the citizens of our Republic are guided and obeyed  of their own free will.

Accordingly, we, the citizens of the Republic of Artsakh, in an  effort to defend our legal rights and the right to preserve the  subjecthood of our Republic, affirm that the self-determined  Nagorno-Karabakh did not take any part in the formation of the  constitution and authorities of the self-proclaimed Republic of  Azerbaijan, and, on the contrary, declared its independence. However,  the newly formed Azerbaijan did not hide its baseless claims to  Nagorno-Karabakh.

It was in such conditions that the international community recorded  the fact that there were disagreements over the status of  Nagorno-Karabakh, recognizing the disputed nature of this territory.  Armenia and Azerbaijan then became participating countries of the  CSCE/OSCE on the condition that they recognized the existence of  disagreements over the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh and agreed that the  future status of Nagorno-Karabakh would be determined at a peace  conference under the auspices of the CSCE/OSCE.  Both states have  assumed an international obligation to resolve the issue exclusively  by peaceful means.

However, once it became an CSCE/OSCE participating state, Azerbaijan  immediately violated its international obligation to resolve disputes  peacefully. Official Baku illegally used force against the NKR as a  disputed territory in order to prevent holding an international  conference to determine the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. In those  conditions, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh exercised their right to  self- defense. The armed aggression of Azerbaijan in 1992-1994  resulted in its defeat with significant territorial losses. It is  important to emphasize that the Line of Contact between the NKR and  Azerbaijan was internationally recognized.

However, during the three decades of the conflict, not a single  statesman, politician or international legal authority answered a  simple question: why Azerbaijan and other states that have legally  recognized the obligation to follow the rule of law as a fundamental  principle of their statehood, can disregard the obligation to respect  the right of self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh and the principle  of non-use of force, both arising from that fundamental principle?

This circumstance allowed Azerbaijan to retain in its policy arsenal  the strategy of annexation Nagorno- Karabakh through the forced  expulsion of its indigenous people. Azerbaijan's aggressive policy  has yet to receive due international condemnation. International  actors, contrary to their international obligations to bear  responsibility for protecting the population from genocide  (Responsibility to Protect), unfortunately, did not pay due attention  to the warnings contained in the Statement of the Parliament of  Artsakh of July 27, 2023 about the most serious existential threats  facing the population of Artsakh, did not prevent the criminal  actions of Azerbaijan, which committed another military aggression  against the NKR in September 2023 and completely expelled the  indigenous Armenian population of Artsakh from their historical  Homeland.

It should be recalled that after conclusion of truce on November 9,  2020, the President of Azerbaijan stated that the Nagorno-Karabakh  problem no longer exists, and everyone must come to terms with the  results of the Second Karabakh War. In an effort to change the  essence of the conflict, Azerbaijan has introduced into its  diplomatic vocabulary a false narrative of "Armenia's occupation of  Azerbaijani lands," through which it attempts to mute legitimate  concerns about its aggressive genocidal policy.

We do not intend to compromise our principles, beliefs and our rights  in relation to our own Motherland, neither in the face of force, nor  under the threat of destruction, neither in exile, nor under any  other political circumstances.

The whole civilized world faces a choice today: either to restore the  international order in Nagorno- Karabakh, based on respect for the  right to self-determination and other rights and freedoms of peoples  and human rights, or to agree that blockade, armed aggression,  genocide and occupation are legitimate ways to resolve conflicts.

Today, leaders of many states speak about the need for the return of  Armenians to Nagorno-Karabakh.  However, we believe that for the  peaceful, safe and dignified return and life of our people in their  homeland the following indisputable conditions are required:

First, we rule out the return of citizens of the Republic of Artsakh  to the jurisdiction of Azerbaijan.  Azerbaijani armed forces, police  and administration must be completely withdrawn from the territory of  the Republic of Artsakh, including the Shahumyan region, where too  Azerbaijan bears full responsibility for the ethnic cleansing in  1992.

Second, multinational international UN peacekeeping forces should be  deployed along the entire border of the Republic of Artsakh, and a  demilitarized zone should be created.

Third, the internationally recognized Lachine Corridor should be  completely transferred to UN control and management.

Fourth, the territory of the Republic of Artsakh should be handed  over to the UN control to ensure the conditions for the return of all  refugees, formation of democratic and legal institutions and the  restoration of the economy. All refugees must have equal status,  equal rights and be subject to the common rules of the transitional  period until a referendum is held to confirm the final political  status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the result of which will be legally  recognized by all states.

Fifth, the possibility of criminal prosecution by Azerbaijan of  citizens of the Republic of Artsakh on any charges for the entire  period of the conflict should be completely excluded. All arrested  and already convicted Armenians in Azerbaijan must be released  immediately. We are ready to recognize the competence of an  international tribunal to investigate every war crime for which our  citizens are accused, provided that in a similar way this tribunal  will also address all war crimes committed by citizens of Azerbaijan  and its mercenaries.

We are ready to do our best to contribute to achieving a peaceful  resolution to the conflict, which will be based on the full respect  for the right to self-determination and other internationally  recognized human rights and freedoms of peoples.      

The text of the appeal and list of signatories are available here as  well: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nKmYDOoyO3hlwNFasUMB45Pc0Lm_kjLe/edit