The answer of Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan to the question of Armenpress News Agency

Question: Mr. Kocharyan, what is Armenia’s position on targeting civilians during the large-scale operations unleashed by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic? What international legal assessment should be given to those hideous crimes?

Answer: The large-scale offensive operations unleashed by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh in recent days not only violated Ceasefire Agreement, signed by the latter in 1994, and the Trilateral Agreement on the consolidation of ceasefire regime in 1995, but also is accompanied with gross violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

From the very beginning of the Azerbaijani offensive civilian infrastructures and civilian population, including children and the elderly have become intentional and indiscriminate targets of their actions. Among the first civilian victims were the 12 years old Vaghinak Grigoryan, who was killed, and two other wounded school-children.

Azerbaijan violates the international humanitarian law and international human rights law, particularly, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Geneva Conventions of 1949 and its Additional Protocols of 1977, 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In Talish village of Martakert region of Artsakh, the Azerbaijani soldiers tortured, maimed and killed three members of the Khalapyan family, the eldest of which was Marusya Khalapyan, born in 1924. It is impossible to find any justification for such barbarism towards civilians. The actions of the Azerbaijani army are violating the abovementioned conventions, customary law on war, as well as are beyond any civilizational elementary norms.

The masterminds and perpetrators of such hideous crimes should be brought to justice.

We lend importance to the strong condemnation by the international community, including the international institutions dealing with human rights and humanitarian law, of the atrocities being committed by Azerbaijan against the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh .