Statement of civil society representatives of Artsakh

On September 27, 2020, the combined armed forces of Azerbaijan and Turkey, with the involvement of terrorist mercenaries, unleashed all their military power on Artsakh.

For 26 years, the Azerbaijani side, both at the official level and within the framework of civil diplomacy, has demonstrated a categorical rejection of compromises, insisting on the return of Nagorno-Karabakh under its control. Thus, it unconditionally denied the fundamental right of the Karabakh Armenians to self-determination. The language of ultimatums used by Baku, derailed all the efforts of the international intermediaries and alternative peacemaking initiatives.

At the same time, Azerbaijan staged constant provocations on the borders with Artsakh and Armenia, violating the ceasefire, and incited Armenian-hating sentiments in society, elevating racism to the rank of state policy. By seeking the extradition and honoring as a hero of the criminal offender Ramil Safarov, who hacked a sleeping Armenian officer to death with an axe in Budapest and was sentenced to life imprisonment by Hungarian court, unleashing a war against Artsakh in April 2016 and allowing crimes against humanity to be committed, official Baku has always proved that all its assurances about the possibility of safe residence of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians within the Republic of Azerbaijan are worthless.

All the years since the hot phase of the 1992-1994 conflict, are filled with numerous other testimonials to the genocidal policy of that state, which is a direct continuation of the tragedy of 1915 in Ottoman Turkey and is based on a distortion of history, open claims of senior management of AR not only for Artsakh but also for Yerevan. The new, already joint Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression, which has all the attributes of the war of international terrorism against the civilian population, left our people no choice but to defend their right to live on the land of their ancestors with weapons in their hands. Civilian objects are destroyed (residential buildings, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, power plants, bridges, roads, monuments and cultural institutions, churches). The region is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster.

And the result of this war can only be the final consolidation of Artsakh people’s self-determination as the only way to physically survive and preserve its own identity.

We, representatives of the civil society of Nagorno-Karabakh including public figures and leaders of non-governmental organizations, call on the authorities of Armenia and all countries that consider humanism, freedom and democracy to be unshakable values, as well as international organizations to recognize the independence of the Republic of Artsakh without delay, relying on the principle of "Remedial Secession" and on the will of our citizens, unanimously expressed in a Referendum on December 10, 1991.

Today, the border between evil and good runs precisely on our land, and for the sake of the future, everyone who believes in peace and justice must demonstrate which side they are on!

Zhanna Krikorova – "Theater" Creative Association

Irina Grigoryan – Institute of Public Diplomacy

Gegham Baghdasaryan – Stepanakert Press Club

Albert Voskanyan – Center for Civil Initiatives

Kim Gabrielyan – Union of Journalists of Artsakh

Julietta Arustamyan – "Harmony" NGO

Ruzanna Avagyan – Artsakh Refugees Union 

Gayane Hambartsumyan – Women's Resource Center

Susanna Petrosyan – Artsakh Youth Development Center

Vera Grigoryan – Union of Relatives of Missing Persons

Artur Avanesyan – Union of Relatives of Fallen Soldiers

Galina Somova – the Russian Community of Artsakh

Sophie Ivanidis – Greek community of Artsakh

Vardan Hakobyan - Artsakh Writers' Union

Civic leaders:

Hasmik Arushanyan

Karina Ohanyan

Ashot Sargsyan

Alvard Zakaryan

Kristina Balayan