"Fridays for the Future": European politicians signed new gas deals with the Azerbaijani dictator under the guise of ethnic cleansing in Artsakh

ArmInfo. The Fridays For Future  movement responded to the UN climate summit (COP29) being held in  Azerbaijan

Thus, the initiative on its Instagram page, which has 443 thousand  followers, notes that Azerbaijan exploited environmental protests as  a front for starting the 9 months blockade of Artsakh/Nagorno-  Karabagh, which resulted in a complete ethnic cleansing of the  indigenous Armenian population and the continued destruction and  re-appropriation of Armenian cultural heritage in the region.  While  these events unfolded unnoticed by the international community,  European politicians were signing new gas deals with the Azerbaijani  dictator, whose family has been in power for three decades.  Succeeding his father, Ilham Aliyev is ruling the country with his  wife as vice-president", the initiative said in a statement.

At the same time, it is emphasized that these politicians and  companies are complicit in the authoritarian regime, "greenwashing"  of genocide."Around 40% of Israel's oil is imported from Azerbaijan,  fueling war machines against Palestinians. In return, Azerbaijan  receives 70% of its weapons from Israel for use against Armenians",  Fridays for Future notes.

In this vein, it is added that civil society in Azerbaijan is  oppressed tremendously and, according to the Freedom Index,  Azerbaijan is consistently ranked among the most oppressive countries  in the world.

"Azerbaijan is now threatening to start a new war against Armenia,  calling the capital of Armenia "West Azerbaijan," the statement  further reads.

At the same time, the initiative points to the key demands of  Armenian civil society for the UN Climate Summit. In particular, the  release of all political prisoners (both Azerbaijani and Armenian)  and prisoners of war; guarantee the right of return and their safety  for indigenous Armenian people to Artsakh by implementing  international peacekeepers; guaranteeing safety for Armenia itself  and the peace agreement; return of lands occupied during and after  the 2020 war.  Fridays For Future is a youth-led and organized  movement that began in August 2018, after 15-year-old Greta Thunberg  and other young activists sat in front of the Swedish parliament  every school day for three weeks, to protest the lack of action on  climate crisis. She posted what she was doing on Instagram and  Twitter and it soon went viral.

By the following year, it had snowballed into a global movement  involving some 4 million students in 150 countries. In June, Greta  graduated,  marking the end of her school protest days. But the young  activist's legacy lives on, with hundreds of strikes scheduled each  Friday around the globe.

This is an international social movement of schoolchildren and  students, whose participants demand "quick and decisive action" from  politicians in the fight against global warming.