Nalbandian: I hope participants in UN Forum in Azerbaijan will be brave enough to criticize Azerbaijan's policy of hatred and barbarity

"I hope the participants in the UN Forum in Azerbaijan will be brave enough to criticize Azerbaijan's policy of hatred and barbarity," Armenian 
Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Yerevan on April 22.      

"The Forum is meant to protect the high universal and civilized values. We think it is wrong to hold such a forum in the country, 
which infringes and ignores these values. How can Armenia participate in that event?" said Nalbandian, noting that several countries and 
structures have reduced the level of their participation in that forum. 

He expressed hope that the countries participating in the forum will be brave enough to slam Azerbaijan's policy of Armenophobia and 
atrocities committed a few kilometers away from the venue of the Forum.  

To note, the Seventh Forum of the UN Alliance of Civilizations will be held in Baku on April 25-27. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was 
going to attend the Forum but unexpectedly canceled his visit to the South Caucasus.  Earlier, Armenia issued a statement in the light of 
the Forum. The statement, in particular, said, "In the early hours of April 2, 2016 Azerbaijan unleashed large-scale offensive operations 
against Nagorno- Karabakh thus violating trilateral agreements of 1994 on cease-fire and of 1995 on the cease-fire consolidation, 
signed by Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, which do not have time limits.  Azerbaijan has violated basic principles of 
international law, the decisions and declarations adopted by the OSCE Summits and Ministerial Councils, blatantly disregarding the 
statements of the presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries - the Russian Federation, United States of America and the 
French Republic, on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution." 

The statement also said that "from the very beginning of the Azerbaijani offensive the civilian infrastructures and civilian 
population, including children and the elderly, became intentional  and indiscriminate targets. Among the first civilian victims were a 
12 year old boy who was killed in front of the school building as a  result of a Grad missile attack and two other schoolchildren wounded. 
In one of villages in Karabakh three elderly persons, including a 92  year old woman, were brutally tortured, mutilated and killed.  
Moreover, three captive soldiers of the Nagorno-Karabakh armed forces  were beheaded by Azerbaijani armed forces in ISIL style, which was 
subsequently celebrated in the towns and villages and publicized through social networks. Furthermore, during the exchange of bodies 
of the deceased between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan carried out through the mediation of the International Committee of Red Cross and 
the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman in Office, it was registered that the bodies of deceased transferred by 
the Azerbaijani side had the evidences of severe torture and mutilation.

Those barbaric acts of Azerbaijan, going beyond elementary norms of civilized world constitute violations of core international 
instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, Convention 
Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. In this 
context, it is also imperative to specifically mention the blatant violation by Azerbaijan of Geneva Convention of 1949, which inter 
alia addresses groups exposed to specific risks, such as children, women and elderly and its additional protocol of 1977. 

Azerbaijan demonstrates its total disregard for international human rights law and international humanitarian law.  Persistent violations 
of human rights inside Azerbaijan, consistent attacks and imprisonment of its civil society representatives, the media and 
human rights defenders, coupled with the regular dissemination of intolerance and hatred against the Armenian people provides breeding 
ground for the criminal military adventurism of the Azerbaijani regime.  At the time of the gathering of the Seventh Forum of the 
United Nations Alliance of Civilisations the Armed Forces of Azerbaijan continue to violate the cease-fire, with new human losses. 
Since the beginning of Azerbaijani aggression and up today as a result of Azerbaijan's aggression hundreds were killed and wounded, 
including civilians. This is a manifestation of the absurdity of celebrating more peaceful and socially inclusive world, building 
mutual respect among peoples of different cultural and religious identities in a country, which is engaged in barbarity and killings a 
few hundred kilometres away from the venue of the Forum. This is an affront to the image and the integrity of the Alliance.

In this dire situation the convening of the Seventh Forum should have been cancelled in Azerbaijan - a country that grossly violates the 
very aims, principles, values of the Alliance of Civilizations. Armenia remains committed to the purposes of the Alliance and remains 
its Friend. However, given the circumstances. Armenia does not join the consensus on the Declaration of the Seventh Forum of the UN 
Alliance of Civilizations. Therefore, in the absence of consensus the Declaration cannot be adopted. Armenia rejects the Seventh Forum, to 
be held in Baku, in its entirety, including its outcome."