Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan noted at UN General Assembly Third Committee meeting
By Rashid Shirinov
The issue of Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan has been once again raised at the international arena – at the meeting of the Third Committee within the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly, Report informed on November 2.
The General Assembly refers to the Third Committee items on the agenda that deal with social, humanitarian and human rights issues.
During the meeting, the High Commissioner for Refugees presented the annual report describing a new model of meeting the needs of millions of people around the world who are forced to leave their homes due to crisis.
Habib Mikayilli, who represented Azerbaijan, drew attention of the meeting participants to the ethnic cleansing carried out against Azerbaijanis in Armenia and in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, as well as the creation of a mono-ethnic state in Armenia. He noted that high-ranking Armenian officials regularly made statements propagating hatred and intolerance.
Due to the ethnic cleansing policy carried out by Armenia and the Armenian occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions of Azerbaijan, the number of refugees and internally displaced persons in Azerbaijan hit more than 1.2 million people. With a population of over 9.8 million, Azerbaijan is among the countries carrying the highest IDP caseload in the world in per capita terms.
“Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan is illegal, unilateral separation from independent states is prohibited by international law. The fact that this illegal situation continues because of political circumstances does not mean that it becomes legal,” he added.
Mikayilli urged Armenia to abandon its racist ideology and learn to live in peace with its neighbors.
“Armenia unleashed a war against Azerbaijan, carried out ethnic cleansing on a massive scale and destroyed the cultural heritage of the Azerbaijani people in the occupied territories,” he noted, adding that the leadership of Armenia is known for hate speech and incitement to violence.
Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on the country. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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