Azerbaijani ombudsman talks statement of Council of Europe's human rights commissioner

By Trend

The statement of the Council of Europe's Human Rights Commissioner Dunja Mijatovi? regarding the peaceful protests on Azerbaijan's Khankandi-Lachin road is regretting, Azerbaijani Ombudsman Sabina Aliyeva said, Trend reports.

She noted that Mijatovi? makes biased political statements, while she is supposed to demonstrate an objective, impartial, and fair approach.

Aliyeva noted that as she indicated in her last statement, 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 is 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. Furthermore, there are no obstacles for the delivery of necessary goods and medical care for the residents of Armenian origin of Karabakh," she said.

Azerbaijani Ombudsman noted that although it is directly related to her mandate, Armenia’s occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan for nearly three decades, the genocides against the civilian population, and the looting of cities and villages, for some reason did not bother the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe. She said that the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe also remained indifferent to Armenia's policy of ethnic cleansing in the historical lands of Azerbaijan, and the loss of life and health of hundreds of civilians as a result of firing at the densely populated civilian objects with the use of prohibited weapons during the second Karabakh war.

In addition, according to the Azerbaijani Ombudsman, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe did not react to landmine contamination of Azerbaijan's territories during the occupation period and aftermath, the failure of Armenia to provide any information about the fate of nearly 4,000 missing Azerbaijanis, and other facts of similar unlawful acts, which are contradicted to the universal principles of international law.

"It must be noted that even today the return of Azerbaijanis, who were displaced from their native lands about 30 years ago, to the liberated lands is delayed due to the destruction and mine terrorism caused by Armenia during the occupation," she added.

Aliyeva reminded that in the UNGA Resolution "Situation in the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan" adopted in 2006, the issue of assessment of the impact of the fires in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan on the ecological security of the region was raised, as well as in the 2016 Resolution of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly titled “Inhabitants of frontier regions of Azerbaijan are deliberately deprived of water”, the immediate withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the region concerned and the provision of an on-the-spot survey by independent engineers and hydrologists were demanded.

"I consider it is a bias to express unfounded opinions against Azerbaijan regarding its citizens’ protests against ecoterrorism, which violates the rights of people to live in a healthy environment, using their rights enshrined in the national legislation and in the ECHR, by the Commissioner, who did not respond to our repeated appeals regarding the war crimes committed by the military and political leadership of Armenia, the serious threat to human life caused by the mines buried during the occupation and post-war period, and the ecocide crimes and call her to demonstrate a neutral stand," she said.