The UN’s top court will rule on the Armenia-Azerbaijan dispute.
The UN’s top court will rule on Tuesday on Armenia and Azerbaijan’s tit-for-tat pleas for emergency measures to reduce tensions following last year’s war between the Caucasus arch-foes.
Both former Soviet republics accuse the other of racial discrimination after a six-week struggle in autumn 2020 over Azerbaijan’s separatist province of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In September, the rivals each petitioned the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which is based in The Hague’s Peace Palace, to take action against the other while a full case is resolved, which could take years.
The ICJ’s top judge, Joan Donoghue, “will deliver her order on the Republic of Armenia’s request for the indication of provisional measures” at 1400 GMT, the court said in a statement.
It will issue a decision on Azerbaijan’s case shortly after that.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) was established after World War II to settle disputes between UN member nations. Parties who agree to have their issues adjudicated by the court are bound by its decisions, but the court has no means of enforcing them.
After the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian territory of Azerbaijan, broke away from Baku’s rule.
Last year, more than 6,500 people died in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. It came to an end in November when Armenia relinquished regions it had ruled for decades to Turkish-backed Azerbaijan, thanks to a Russian-brokered truce.
Armenia and Azerbaijan both accused the other of violating a UN convention, the International Convention on All Forms of Racial Discrimination, during hearings in October (CERD).
Azerbaijan is accused of indoctrinating generations of people into a “culture of dread, of hatred of anything and everyone Armenian,” according to Armenia.
They asked judges to order the immediate release of Armenian prisoners of war and the closing of Azerbaijan’s “Military Trophies Park,” where wax dolls of Armenian warriors with “exaggerated Armenophobic traits” are displayed, according to them.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of planting landmines as part of a “ethnic cleansing” effort.
It claimed that when Azerbaijani citizens tried to return home following the “liberation” of Nagorno-Karabakh last year, they discovered the area had been “carpeted” with landmines by Armenia.
Following Russian-mediated discussions, Azerbaijan claimed on Saturday that it has freed ten Armenian soldiers detained last month during fresh combat.
In exchange, Armenia provided maps of minefields.
The trade came after President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan and Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian of Armenia agreed to reduce hostilities for the time being. The Washington Newsday Brief News is a daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C.