Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations in Berlin

On the occasion of the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, the Central Council of Armenians in Germany, the working group “Arbeitsgruppe Anerkennung, gegen Genozid für Völkerverständigung e.V.”, and the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) published the following joint statement:

“Anyone who is genuinely interested in peace in the South Caucasus should clearly name the perpetrators and act consistently. The Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan represents a dictatorship that is responsible for the expulsion of 100,000 Armenians from the region of Nagorno Karabakh in 2023 – following a nine-month-long hunger blockade against the de facto Republic of Artsakh, which was a violation of orders of the International Court of Justice. According to various human rights organizations and human rights expert Luis Moreno Ocampo, both the blockade and the expulsion are to be seen as crimes of genocide.

To this day, Azerbaijan continues to threaten the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia. In February 2024 alone, Azerbaijan launched two attacks against Armenia, leading to four casualties on the side of Armenia. The German Federal Government should no longer support the aggressive and inhumane policies of the dictator in Baku, forcing Armenia to accept a “peace” that was dictated by Azerbaijan. The German Federal Government – and Foreign Minister Baerbock in particular – must not fall for such a farce,” the three organizations stated. Instead, Berlin should threaten to impose effective sanctions on Azerbaijan in the case of any further military attacks. “Please condemn – publicly and clearly – the expulsion of the 100,000 Armenians, demand investigations into this crime, and advocate for the release of the political prisoners, including the three former presidents of Artsakh / Nagorno Karabakh.”

Following the expulsions of September 23, 2023, cultural heritage sites in the region are threatened. Cemeteries and secular monuments are being destroyed, and sacred monuments are culturally “appropriated” – including the removal of Armenian architectural inscriptions, dome crosses, and the domes that are characteristic of Armenian sacred architecture. Please prevent further destruction before it is too late again! The example of Nakhchivan should be a warning: In the period from 1997 to March 2006, the Azerbaijani army destroyed a total of 28,000 Armenian architectural monuments in the region (including 89 medieval churches, 5,840 cross stones and 22,000 old gravestones) with bulldozers. The 1500-year-old historic Armenian cemetery in Jura, which now serves as a military training ground for the Azerbaijani army, was particularly affected.