YEREVAN. – The Republic of Armenia will also continue its fight against the crime of genocide within the framework of international organizations,President Serzh Sargsyan said during “At the Foot of Mount Ararat” media forum in Yerevan. (photos)

“In 2013, at its 22th session, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously adopted the resolution on the prevention of genocide initiated by Armenia. This year we are going to table another draft resolution,” he said, addressing the participants.

“It is inspiring that the representatives of the international community are also engaged in Armenian-led initiatives. Moreover, its members continue to bring their weighty contribution towards the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide.

We are forever grateful to all those states and peoples who both in times of the calamity and during the subsequent years, have granted asylum to thousands of Armenians, giving them an opportunity to survive and preserve their identity and become full-fledged members of society in the given countries.

While attaching importance to the recognition and condemnation of genocides as a means of preventing their recurrence, we also extend our gratitude to all those states and organizations who continue to reflect upon the crime committed against our nation. This bears witness to the civilized world’s sincere commitment to the protection of universal values, which inspires nations subjected to genocide to believe in the restoration of justice and violated rights, just condemnation of the crimes and inadmissibility of impunity.

The resolution titled “The Armenian Genocide and European Values” adopted recently by the EPP Political Assembly on March 3, 2015 was a striking example of such a commitment. It contained serious political messages on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, its condemnation and denial, and called upon Turkey to confront its past. Such a position on the Armenian Genocide adopted by Europe’s largest and most influential political force should indeed play a guiding role for European institutions and EU member states.

It is clear that in today’s world the guarantee of stability and normal development is peaceful co-existence and tolerance. This is the very principle guiding us through the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, thereby not allowing Azerbaijan to ruin peace negotiations with its bellicose statements and provocative actions. In contrast to Azerbaijani authorities, whose provocative actions endanger the stability of not only their state but also of the region, Armenia is fully aware of the grave consequences of such adventurism. Therefore, by containing Azerbaijan’s military provocations, we try to avoid a new spark of the conflict, which will seriously deteriorate the already unstable situation in our entire region.

We do not incite hostility and hatred among our people, which has been an inseparable component of the policy carried out by the Azerbaijani authorities for years. In contrast to the Azerbaijani President who declared that the Armenian people are the number one enemies of Azerbaijanis, I would like to highlight once again that the Armenians do not have enemy nations.

It was Azerbaijan’s decades-long anti-Armenian policy and the determination to restore historical justice that ultimately drove the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to exercise their inviolable right to self-determination – to build their own homeland on their own land. Regardless of Azerbaijan’s threats and provocations, the wheel of history is impossible to roll back: the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is already a well-established reality and it is not feasible to break the freedom-loving spirit of its people. To ascertain it, I am calling upon you to visit Nagorno-Karabakh to get acquainted with the Artsakh state-building on the ground and represent the objective reality to your public.

The Armenian position on the settlement of the conflict remains the same: it must be settled within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, through peaceful negotiations on the basis of the three famous principles of the Helsinki Final Act put forth by the Co-Chairs. Azerbaijan’s efforts to alter the format provided by the Minsk Group, talk to the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh from a position of force, provocations and blackmail will not yield a lasting solution. This is an unequivocal truth.

On January 27, 2015 the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group issued a statement in Krakow on Azerbaijan’s destructive policy, in which they called upon Azerbaijan to live up to its commitments to the peaceful resolution of the conflict. I strongly believe that continued sending of targeted messages calling to exercise restraint will incite certain degree of vigilance with their true addressee.”

Photos by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am