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Armenia's deliberate targeting of civilians is gross violation of int’l humanitarian law: Turkish expert (Trend)
Armenia's deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilians is a gross violation of international humanitarian law, Professor Naciye Selin Senocak, the head of the cultural diplomacy department at the Institute for European Studies in Brussels and head of the Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies (CEDS) in Paris, told Trend.
She noted that the OSCE Minsk Group is the principal responsible for recent Armenian military aggression against Azerbaijani territories and civilians.
“The OSCE Minsk Group has failed in the Karabakh negotiation and peacebuilding process. For 30 years the inefficiency and irresponsibility of the OSCE MINSK Group have motivated Armenia to intensify its military aggression against Azerbaijan's territory, the civilians and civilian infrastructure. Armenia's deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilians is a gross violation of international humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention of 1949. Targeting the civilian population is a tactic incorporated in the combat training of Armenia's armed forces, and the Khojaly genocide perpetrated in February 1992.
“According to international law, Armenian armed forces' strikes against the positions of Azerbaijan's army, against the civilians and civilian infrastructure, with the use of large-caliber weapons, are Armenia's yet another military aggression and an act of the use of force against Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has issued repeated warnings to the international community that Armenia is preparing for a new act of aggression and war Unfortunately, the International Community especially OSCE Minsk Group continues its ostrich policy.
“Armenia committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the massacre in Khojaly in 1992, which is a genocide. The international community has shamefully kept silent about this genocide. By pursuing its military build-up in the occupied territories, illegally changing demography through illegal settlement policy, altering the centuries-old toponyms, and destroying cultural heritage in the occupied lands, Armenia is not interested in seeking diplomatic settlement of the armed conflict.
“In order to restore the peace and stability in the Caucasus region, the international community must demand Armenia cease the illegal occupation of Azerbaijan's territories, withdraw its troops from all seized lands and engage constructively in the conflict settlement process in the spirit and language of the adopted resolutions and norms and principles of international law. This conflict has serious security implications throughout Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East,”
For establishing a serious and efficient sustainable peace-building process a new diplomatic mechanism under the observation of the UN Peace Building Commission must replace the OSCE Minsk Group which has failed in the Nagorno-Karabakh peacebuilding process. Karabakh is Azerbaijan!” said Senocak.