Armenia, 2013

I

would like to join previous speakers in congratulating

Mr. John William Ashe on his election as President of

the General Assembly at its sixty-eighth session and to

thank the outgoing President, Mr. Vuk Jeremi..

During the past two decades, the international

community has made great strides towards the

development of a cohesive approach aimed at

addressing the political, social and economic

challenges that the international community is facing

today. We need to analyse our commitments, keeping

in mind the difficulties that we have encountered while

implementing the Millennium Development Goals.

The world economic and financial crises are partially

responsible for our straying from the charted path.

However, they brought to light some of the underlying

issues that had either been overlooked or underestimated

and which turned out to be important for the overall

success.

We are all aware that, in the context of

interdependence and the growing interconnectedness

of the world economy, no country can achieve the

Millennium Development Goals in isolation. The

United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development

enriched our understanding of the ways of achieving

the overall progress towards the political, social and

economic development.

Armenia welcomes the inclusion of “The post-2015

development agenda: setting the stage” as the main

theme of our deliberations in the current session.

(spoke in English)

Despite the fact that most of us share the

understanding that the elimination of violence and

terror is essential for building peaceful, sustainable and

prosperous societies, peace seems to remain an elusive

phenomenon in many parts of the world.

Armenia remains alarmed by the worsening of the

humanitarian situation in Syria. The number of refugees

Armenia continues to receive already exceeds 10,000,

but tens of thousands of Syrian-Armenians remain in

Syria, a country that had become their second home

after the genocide of 1915, and they are struggling for

their survival in unbearable conditions together with

their fellow Syrians.

Armenia welcomes the unanimous adoption

yesterday of Security Council resolution 2118 (2013),

based on the agreement reached in Geneva between

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and United States

Secretary of State Kerry. The resolution could lead to

the elimination of chemical weapons and the exclusion

of their use in Syria and pave the way for a political

solution of the Syrian crisis, putting an end to the

suffering of the Syrian people.

It is our strong belief that there is no alternative

to the peaceful solution of conflicts. The resolution

of conflicts requires political will and determination.

Three months ago, on 18 June the Presidents of the

three co-Chair countries of the Minsk Group of the

Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

(OSCE) — Russia, United States and France — made a

new statement on Nagorno Karabakh in the framework

of the Group of Eight Summit in Enniskillen.

In Armenia, we welcomed that statement and

affirmed that, like the co-Chairs, we continued to

believe that the elements outlined in the statements of

the Heads of State of the co-Chair countries over the

past five years can form the basis for reaching a fair and

lasting settlement of the conflict. We share the position

of the co-Chair countries that those elements should

be seen as an integrated whole and that any attempt

to select some elements over others would make it

impossible to achieve a solution. We absolutely agree

that peoples should be prepared for peace, not war.

Unfortunately, to date the Azerbaijani leadership has

been doing just the opposite, increasing warmongering

and anti-Armenian hate speech on a daily basis, even

using the lofty rostrum of the United Nations for its

purposes.

We absolutely agree with the Heads of the three

co-Chair countries — which are also three permanent

members of the Security Council — that the use of force

will not resolve the conflict and that only a negotiated

settlement can lead to peace and stability. However,

through its unprecedented accumulation of offensive

weaponry at a massive scale, Azerbaijan seriously

endangers regional and international security, despite

its membership in the Security Council.

Unlike Azerbaijan, Armenia has on several

occasions reiterated its commitment to the principles

of international law and, in response to the Enniskillen

appeal of the Presidents of the United States, the Russian

Federation and France, once again reaffirmed that

commitment, particularly with respect to the non-use

of force or the threat of force, equal rights and the self-

determination of peoples and territorial integrity.

Azerbaijan keeps misinterpreting the 1993

resolutions of the Security Council — resolutions 822

(1993), 853 (1993), 874 (1993) and 884 (1993) — the

core requirement of which was the immediate cessation

of all hostilities and hostile acts and the establishment

of a durable ceasefire. Azerbaijan has not only failed

to comply with the latter requirement, but further

intensified its aggression and the military operations

against Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia using

mercenaries closely linked to notorious terrorist

organizations. It is not surprising that since the

ceasefire agreement was signed in 1994, the mediators,

the three permanent members of the Security Council,

have never made another reference to those resolutions.

Azerbaijan is acting as if the international

community shared its approach and as if it shared

the approach of the international community. In

reality, Azerbaijan continuously rejects all proposals

of the internationally mandated OSCE Minsk Group

co-Chair countries. Baku has rejected all versions of

the Basic Principles of the settlement of the Nagorno

Karabakh conflict proposed by the co-Chairs of the

OSCE Minsk Group, including those presented at

the Kazan, Sochi, Astrakhan and Saint Petersburg

summits. Baku refuses not only the Basic Principles,

but also the confidence-building measures proposed

by the co-Chairs on consolidation of the ceasefire,

withdrawal of the snipers from the line of contact and

the establishment of a mechanism for investigating

ceasefire violations. Azerbaijan not only obstructs

confidence-building measures, but also periodically

organizes provocations on the line of contact with

Nagorno Karabakh and on the border with Armenia,

which has resulted in new casualties.

At the previous session of the General Assembly

(see A/67/PV.19), I spoke about the Azerbaijani

leadership’s release and glorification of an axe-murderer

named Ramil Safarov, which was strongly condemned

by the entire international community and by the

human rights commissions of the United Nations and

other international organizations. Even today, more

than a year after Safarov’s release, the Azerbaijani

leadership continues to declare that what they did is

just and right and dares to criticize the stance of the

international community. That clearly demonstrates the

deepening gap between the Azerbaijani leadership and

the international community in terms of perceptions of

what is good and what is bad.

Most recently, Azerbaijani authorities at the

national level have ostracized the eminent Azerbaijani

writer Akram Aylisli for publishing a novel in which he

talks about the pogroms against Armenians in Baku,

Sumgait and other parts of Azerbaijan. Aylisli’s books

were publicly burned, and the writer had to leave the

country after receiving death threats.

Just last week the Azerbaijani leadership once

again came up with new threats against Armenia and

Nagorno Karabakh and made claims to Armenian

territories, including its nearly 3,000-year-old capital

city, Yerevan. Notwithstanding Azerbaijan’s destructive

stance, Armenia will continue to make efforts towards

the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict

exclusively through peaceful means and on the basis

of the purposes and principles and norms set forth in

the United Nations Charter and the provisions of the

statements made by the Presidents of the three co-Chair

countries’ at L’Aquila, Muskoka, Deauville, Los Cabos

and Enniskillen.

In March, the Human Rights Council adopted

by consensus a resolution initiated by Armenia and

co-sponsored by over 60 countries on the prevention

of genocide. The recognition, condemnation and

prevention of genocide remain a priority for Armenia,

and we will take the necessary actions to prevent new

occurrences of the crime of genocide, while keeping the

issue of responsibility for crimes against humanity and

the denial thereof high on its agenda. As the nation that

survived the first genocide of the twentieth century,

Armenia unequivocally welcomes the clear position

adopted by the States Members of the United Nations

that precludes any possibility of immunity or pardon

for perpetrators of crimes against humanity.

In May 2013, Armenia assumed the chairmanship

of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe,

a regional organization that is a key partner of the

United Nations in our shared global quest to advance

the principles of fundamental freedoms, the defence

and promotion of human rights and the continuous

efforts for peace and security.

Cooperation between the two organizations is also

well established in the fight against racism, xenophobia,

hate speech and intolerance. Those issues are also

among the priorities established during Armenia’s

chairmanship, elaborated in response to the challenges

that Member States of both the United Nations and the

Council of Europe are facing today.

Armenia is committed to strengthening the

institutional capacities of the United Nations. In that

regard, we support the United Nations reform process

and are ready to contribute to it. We believe that the

reforms provide an opportunity to enhance the role of

the Organization in addressing the crucial issues facing

the world.