The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) has issued a statement in response to the absence of an Armenian footballer at the final match of the Europa League taking place in Baku due to Baku’s racist stance.

In its statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the processes related to the final match of the Europa League in Baku, particularly the fact that midfielder of Arsenal and captain of the Armenian national football team Henrikh Mkhitaryan was compelled to not participate in the match and several Armenian fans were unable to go to Baku to watch the match proved once again that the negative consequences of Azerbaijan’s decade-long policy on instilling Armenophobia can’t be overcome in an instant and that the Azerbaijani government has started actively using Armenophobia in the context of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict as a tool to repress the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination by force.

“The insemination of Armenophobia and encouragement of crimes committed on the ground of Armenophobia have been raised to the level of a state policy that the President of Azerbajian has formulated in the following way: “All Armenians are the main enemy of Azerbaijan”.

Despite the several calls of international organizations, the Azerbaijani government isn’t taking an action to fulfill its international commitments to eliminate all forms of discrimination.

Amid the ongoing deterioration of the situation in relationto xenophobia in Azerbaijan, it is the general responsibility of the international community to impact the Azerbaijani authorities to put an end to the hate propaganda and eliminate the negative phenomena caused by that propaganda. The state policy of many years has reached a point where public expression of Armenophobia has begun to be perceived as a norm in Azerbaijani society. To reverse this negative trend, it will be necessary to take active steps with the international community to allow the Azerbaijani society relieve itself of the norms of misanthropy being radicalized by the authorities and take the path to recovery,” the statement particularly reads.