Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan's Ambassador to the United Nations Agshin Mehdiyev has appealed to the UN over the recent statement made by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan that he said incites ethnic discrimination and defies international law.

According to the UN press service, Mehdiyev wrote in a letter to the UN secretary general that Sargsyan’s remarks, made to foreign-based journalists, reflect Armenia’s racist policy and religious prejudices.

"The Armenian president, referring to some ‘genetic research’, stated that Armenia has existed as a state for approximately 8 millennia," the letter said. "Let’s set aside his country’s versatile history. By saying that, he claims that Armenians are superior to other nations, including Azerbaijanis, and calls Azerbaijanis "a Muslim Turk nomadic tribe". Apparently, the Armenian president has forgotten how much trouble the consequences of such ‘genetic research’ have caused to the world in the past."

The ambassador pointed out that it is not the first time senior Armenian officials are making statements propagating ethnic discrimination and defying the founding principles of international law.

"Former Armenian president Robert Kocharian’s comments about ‘ethnic incompliance between Armenians and Azerbaijanis’ had caused valid discontent of the world community. Then Council of Europe Secretary General Walter Schwimmer said ‘Kocharian’s comments are nothing but a hate-filled, aggressive statement instigating war’. Then chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Peter Shider, for his part, said that since the CE was established, he had never heard the expression ‘ethnic incompliance’."

Mehdiyev concluded that Sargsyan’s remarks once again prove that Yerevan has embraced the ideology of ethnic supremacy and hate that forms the basis of Armenia’s policies.

Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war over the mountainous region of Nagorno Karabakh in the early 1990s which claimed some 30,000 lives. Armenia has been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory since then, despite UN resolutions on the unconditional pullout of its armed forces and condemnation by a number of other international organizations. One million Azerbaijanis have been displaced as a result of ethnic cleansing and Azerbaijan’s historical and cultural heritage has been significantly damaged in the occupied land. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but OSCE-brokered peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.

According to the ambassador, in order to ensure lasting peace and stability in the volatile South Caucasus region, the world community should make a concerted effort to convince Armenia to relinquish its policies and practices of ethnic and religious profiling, put an end to the ongoing occupation of a part of Azerbaijan’s territory and its territorial claims against neighboring countries, and forge civilized relations with all regional states. "There is no alternative to that," the letter said.