Artsakh Human Rights Defender Gegham Stepanyan expects concrete actions from the international community, particularly from the UN regarding the Azerbaijani blockade of Artsakh.
He said that there are 1100 people stranded who are unable to either return to Armenia from Artsakh or from Armenia to Artsakh. This number includes 270 children. Schools in Artsakh are shut down amid gas supply cut-off.
Speaking about the UN, he said: “It is the third day and the international organization which was created for human rights and peace in the world hasn’t given any reaction or assessment.”
Geghamyan was participating in the 4th Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide in Yerevan and notified UN officials in private conversations on the situation in Artsakh. He says that not getting a reaction from the UN is regrettable but he hopes that this mistake will soon be corrected.
“Of course calls are also important and have restraining significance, but this time concrete actions must be done. There is an opinion, a claim, that after all for the guarantee of the right to life of the people of Artsakh the UN must utilize international instruments, be it by providing an international mandate to the peacekeepers or opening various UN agencies in Stepanakert. After all, there is a place on Earth called Nagorno Karabakh, where people live, and these people have rights, and the international community must ensure the exercise of this right,” he said.
He said that those responsible for the situation are the parties who signed the trilateral statement who are guarantors for people to return and live in Artsakh. But leaving the responsibility only on the signatories of the statement is not right because international law has the principle of the responsibility to protect which implies that if a nation is facing the threat of genocide or ethnic cleansing the international community has to interfere.
