Artsakh Armenian protest
Nagorno-Karabakh NGOs in the streets against the closure of the Minsk Group, the only institution with an international mandate for the conflict with Azebaijan. A year after the military campaign in Baku, Armenian exiles are still living in precarious conditions in Yerevan or in camps and areas near the border, hoping to return to their native homeland.
Yerevan (AsiaNews) - Representatives of NGOs from Artsakh, the Nagorno Karabakh reannexed to Azerbaijan, organised a protest action at the Foreign Ministry building in Yerevan, asking the authorities not to submit to Baku's demand to dissolve the Minsk Group of the OSCE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the only institution with an international mandate for the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Artur Grigoryan, one of the representatives of the associations, inspired by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan's ‘Tavowš in the name of the homeland’ movement, announced that he had delivered an appeal to Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, signed by members of more than 50 groups who had already submitted a similar request to OSCE President Ian Borg, the deputy prime minister of Malta, at the end of September.
In the document, the ‘People of Artsakh’ recalls the commitments of the Republic of Armenia in the defence of Nagorno Karabakh, in accordance with the norms of both national and international law. ‘Azerbaijan brazenly demands that Armenia sign a joint request for the dissolution of the OSCE group, but the authorities in Yerevan must not submit to this and other impositions of the Baku authorities, because it would be humiliating and deprive all Armenians of their most important rights,’ Grigoryan said, insisting that “the defence of the interests of the people of Artsakh and the international mechanisms that guarantee them, is an aspect of the more important issue of the defence of Armenia's national interests”.
In addition to Bishop Galstanyan, the chairman of the Artsakh Revolutionary Party, Artur Osipyan, also expressed his full support, stating that ‘the Nagorno Karabakh problem remains open, and the international community has not given an exhaustive definition; even UN members have declared that the status of the independent republic has yet to be resolved, it is a task for the entire Armenian world’.
The appeals of the now displaced Armenian citizens of the region that came under Azerbaijani control were renewed after the first anniversary of the war conquest of 20 September 2023, which was carried out by a military action of aggression that extended to the use of heavy weapons, artillery and assault aviation. On 28 September, the then president of Artsakh, Samvel Šakhramanyan, was forced to dissolve all republican institutions, and as of 1 January 2024, Artsakh officially ceased to exist.
The Armenian people of the occupied region were forced into a biblical exodus of more than 115,000 people to their historical homeland, where they still live largely in precarious conditions, without ever giving up defending their rights, considering the annexation of Artsakh to Azerbaijan illegitimate. The government in Yerevan has implemented a number of programmes to assist the refugee groups with their most urgent needs and their integration in Armenia, with a special section of the Ministry of Social Policy.
Many refugees have found temporary accommodation in the capital and other cities, but a considerable number still live in camps and in areas near the border with Azerbaijan, hoping to return to their native homeland of Artsakh. One of these areas is the province of Tavowš, from which the leader of the local eparchy, Archbishop Bagrat, has led the large popular protest movement demanding the resignation of Minister Nikol Pašinyan and the entire government, judged to be surrendering and ‘traitorous’, having handed Artsakh over to Azerbaijan without resistance. They accuse him of also being ready to cede other territories, without defending the integrity and identity of the Armenian homeland.
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26/04/2021 13:41
