Azerbaijan violates Geneva Convention on Protection of Civilian Population - Artsakh State Minister

YEREVAN, August 4. /ARKA/. When drafting and signing the text of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020 (ending hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone), Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia rightly came to the conclusion that the existence of the people of Artsakh, their security, delivery of necessary goods, proper medical care and safe communication with the outside world was possible only in conditions of unimpeded communication with Armenia through the Lachin corridor, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) State Minister Gurgen Nersisyan said in a Facebook post.

"Azerbaijan has deliberately created a humanitarian crisis in Artsakh, closed the road connecting it with Armenia and starting last December 12 organized murders, attempted murders, destruction and damage to property and used military force, threatened to use it and at the same time started forcing Artsakh people to accept humanitarian aid from its "hands" and through the road it proposed," he wrote.

The state minister pointed out that the Artsakh people's demand to receive humanitarian aid from Armenia is not an arbitrary desire, but a realization of their own security and self-preservation,

"A person cannot be forced to receive livelihood from someone who openly kills or threatens to kill that person. Such phenomena were inherent only in slave societies. The Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons guarantees humanity without discrimination and, conversely, prohibits humiliating, insulting and degrading humanism. Today Azerbaijan is trying to convey this 'humanism' using coercion, violence and threat of violence," Nersisyan wrote. -0-