STEPANAKERT. – Political settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Karabakh is not within the ECHR jurisdiction, Karabakh Foreign Minister Karen Mirzoyan said in an interview with karabakh-open.info.
Asked about the verdicts in “Chiragov and others v. Armenia” and “Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan” cases and Baku's response, Mr. Mirzoyan said Azerbaijan's attempts to manipulate the ECHR judgment are devoid of any logic and are fully in line with its policy of distorting the essence of the conflict by all possible means and to impede the efforts aimed at the resolution of the conflict.
“It should be noted that issues related to the political settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Karabakh are not within the ECHR jurisdiction, which is also clearly noted in the court's judgments. Therefore, the attempts to assess the court's judgments in the context of the negotiation process are groundless. The ECHR judgments exclusively relates to the protection of individual rights, and first of all the legal protection of property rights,” the Minister said.
According to him, these judgments have made the issue of refugees and displaced persons topical again.
“It is an integral part of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict settlement process and emerged as a consequence of the conflict, which arose in the result of the Azerbaijani authorities' attempts to suppress the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination.
Azerbaijan stubbornly ignores the fact that the ECHR was simultaneously investigating the “Sargsyan v. Azerbaijan” case, for which it also passed a positive judgment. I think that the ECHR has thus shown that the issue of reimbursement of the persons displaced as a result of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh should be resolved based on the principles of reciprocity and equality.
Unlike Azerbaijan, the NKR has always declared of its readiness to resolve the issues of refugees based on the principles of equality, reciprocity and justice. The discriminatory policy of the Azerbaijani authorities on the collective punishment of the refugees living in the NKR, depriving them of international protection and assistance, runs counter to the principle of reciprocity, justice, and equality of people.
Due to the destructive stance of the Azerbaijani authorities hindering the visit of specialized organizations, in particular, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to the NKR, the refugees living in Nagorno Karabakh are deprived of international protection and assistance. Preventing the access of specialized humanitarian assistance to the refugees living in Nagorno Karabakh, the Azerbaijani authorities thus continue to violate the fundamental rights of this category of persons,” he said.
