Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s remarks to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday focused on what he described as “the latest Azerbaijani unprovoked aggression.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan are once again skirmishing along their contested border, each side accusing the other of violating a cease-fire negotiated after they fought a six-week war in 2020.
Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of launching “an unprovoked and unjustified military aggression against Armenia” on September 13, attacking 36 Armenian towns with “heavy artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and combat UAVs.”
“This was not a border clash,” Pashinyan said, rejecting a term commonly applied to the hostilities by international media. “It was a direct, undeniable attack against the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Armenia, which was condemned and addressed during the latest U.N. Security Council meetings and beyond.”
The Armenian prime minister accused Azerbaijan of deliberately targeting civilians, and said there was evidence of “torture, mutilation of captured or already dead servicemen, numerous instances of extra-judicial killings, and ill-treatment of Armenian prisoners of war.”
“The dead bodies of Armenian female military personnel were mutilated and then ‘proudly’ video-recorded with particular cruelty by the Azerbaijani servicemen,” he added.
Pashinyan said Azerbaijan “intends to occupy more territories of Armenia,” especially if there is an “inappropriate reaction to this situation by the regional security organizations.”
Pashinyan clearly felt current efforts to broker a peace treaty were inappropriate. He said the Azerbaijanis have evinced no real desire for peace and challenged them to take the minimal step of at least drawing a map of Armenia they would be willing to accept.
Unless Azerbaijan offers such formal recognition of Armenia’s borders, he said there could be nothing but a “phantom peace treaty,” which Azerbaijan would use as cover to make “new territorial claims and occupation.”
Pashinyan said the “humanitarian consequences” of the 2020 war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region “have not been addressed yet,” including displaced populations, repatriation of Armenian prisoners of war, and protection for the “cultural and religious heritage” of Armenians living in the region.
He said those residents desperately need “the support of the international community,” but accused Azerbaijan of blocking U.N. humanitarian aid and fact-finding missions.
“It is also reprehensible that Azerbaijan stalls the repatriation of Armenian Prisoners of War, inter alia subjecting them to artificial trials in gross violation of international humanitarian law, its own commitments, and contrary to the calls of the international community,” he said.
Pashinyan said Azerbaijan seeks to compromise not only the territorial integrity of Armenia but also its democratic system of government.
“The Armenian democracy is struggling in an atmosphere, when Azerbaijan is using force every day, to impose its plans unilaterally, to bring to the end the Armenian statehood, independence and democracy,” he said.
“We are determined to build peace in our region, but we need the full support of the international community, which will stand by the sovereign and democratic country and people subjected to aggression against the norms and principles of international law,” Pashinyan told the General Assembly.
Armenia’s view of the conflict received some support last week from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who condemned “illegal and deadly” border attacks by Azerbaijan while visiting the Armenian capital of Tbilisi.
“The unsubstantiated and unfair accusations leveled by Pelosi against Azerbaijan are unacceptable,” the Azerbaijani foreign ministry retorted, dismissing Pelosi’s remarks as “American propaganda.”