13:30, 22 February, 2022
YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 22, ARMENPRESS. The European Union should give an unequivocal and targeted assessment to Azerbaijan and Turkey, Member of Parliament of Armenia from the opposition “Armenia” faction Anna Grigoryan said in her remarks at the joint meeting of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly’s Committees in Yerevan.
“The security challenges continue to be maintained in our region, whereas Azerbaijan thinks that the conflict could be solved by war. About 2 years ago Azerbaijan decided that it can solve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict with the use of force, which itself is a violation of the fundamental principles guaranteed by the UN and the Helsinki Final Act. The war led to disasters, but didn’t solve the conflict, the conflict still exists. Hostility, the spread of Armenophobia and the conflict distorted the prospect of peace agreement in the region”, she said.
She addressed a question on how one can go to a political dialogue with Azerbaijan when the Armenian prisoners of war and captured civilians are still held in Azerbaijan, by facing an inhuman treatment daily, when Azerbaijan committed violence, bloodshed and destructs the Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno Karabakh.
“How can we talk about security when the threat of using force, the propaganda of cynicism, militaristic rhetoric and xenophobia continue from Azerbaijan every day? Moreover, right now the Azerbaijani armed forces continue their occupation in Armenia’s sovereign territory, in Syunik. Due to this policy of Azerbaijan, it becomes difficult to think about a security environment in our region”, the Armenian lawmaker said.
Addressing her colleagues, Anna Grigoryan said the deep silence and Europe’s indifference make all these more difficult.
“If the war unleashed by Azerbaijan against Nagorno Karabakh and fully supported by Turkey was not a red line for applying sanctions against war criminal Aliyev and his regime, if the capturing and torturing of our soldiers is not a red line, then I should ask – whether we support the political dialogue or the policy of aggression? If we choose the political dialogue, security and not aggression, terrorism and xenophobia, then the EU must give a definite targeted political assessment to Azerbaijan and Turkey, the double standards, the selective approaches must be rejected if we really want to achieve security in our region”, the Armenian MP said.