Certain statements voiced in Yerevan legitimize the territorial claims of Azerbaijan, the Ombudsman Arman Tatoyan said at the press conference on 4 February.
The human rights defender stated once again the fallacy of the Armenian side’s approach to the mirror withdrawal of troops from the line of contact. Tatoyan recalled the numerous violations of the rights of the residents of Armenian borderline villages due to the direct presence of Azerbaijani troops. He reiterated the need for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops and the creation of a demilitarized zone to ensure the rights of residents to the end of the process of determining the border. “The Azerbaijani military not only settled on the territories belonging to the villagers by law, but also made their natural life impossible,” he said.
The ombudsman emphasized that it is not only about the consequences of the May invasion. “The cadastral documents were provided by the Soviet cadastral authorities,” the human rights defender recalled. He added that European structures, represented by PACE, share the approach of the necessity of a demilitarized zone. According to him, meetings with international partners show that this approach will find support.
“Unfortunately, there is an opinion that this is unrealistic. This is not true. We do everything to legitimize the presence of Azerbaijani military, and then we say it’s unreal. When the Goris-Kapan and Kapan-Chakaten roads were blocked, instead of immediately going to the ECHR, not to mention other bodies, we began to state on an official level that these were Azerbaijani territories, that security was observed and everything was okay. They started praising the alternative roads, hiding problems from international structures, and refuting the Ombudsman. If we had then appealed to the ECHR, the Azerbaijani authorities would have brought statements from the Armenian side,” said the Ombudsman.
Tatoyan once again reminded that people’s safety must be the guiding principle.
“With all due respect to the Foreign Ministry, the mirror withdrawal violates human rights. Moreover, there are all the grounds, including documents from Soviet times, to remove Azerbaijani military from the territories directly adjacent to the Armenian villages. The process cannot be implemented at the expense of the rights of our citizens,” Tatoyan said, reminding that a lot is spoken about maps, but there are different maps and not only maps should be guided by.
“Our policy is going the wrong way. General statements are made without indicating the facts of human rights violations,” the ombudsman said, noting that certain statements from Armenia have created serious problems, they legitimize the illegal actions of the Azerbaijani authorities. “They will tell us in international instances, and it happened to me, then you yourself admit that the territory is Azerbaijani,” the ombudsman repeated. “And take the situation in the village of Shurnukh, through which the line of contact runs. Can the rights of children be ensured in such a militarized zone, where the Armed Forces of three countries are?” Arman Tatoyan concluded.