Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden
Stockholm, 15 July 2020
Press release regarding Azerbaijan's attacks against Armenia
The Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden strongly condemns the Azerbaijani military attacks on Armenia in recent days, resulting in at least 16 deaths, 12 Azeris and 4 Armenians. The clashes are seen as an escalation of the protracted conflict over the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh region in South Caucasus. The attacks come less than a week after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev criticized the OSCE Minsk Group, the mediator in the conflict. Aliyev scolded the Minsk group for failing to reach a diplomatic solution and instead hinted for a military one.
The clashes that have now been going on for three days are the worst since the short war that broke out in early April 2016 and resulted in several hundred deaths. Even then, it was the Azerbaijani side who launched an offensive on a broad front against the defensive positions in Nagorno-Karabakh. It should be noted that unlike 2016, the latest attacks with artillery fire and drones, are aimed directly at Armenia.
The Union of Armenian Associations in Sweden calls on the Swedish government and the international community to condemn Azerbaijan's aggression, which goes hand in hand with the hateful rhetoric that the regime is propagating against Armenia and Armenians around the world. Aliyev’s increased authoritarian regime is not only an obvious threat towards its own people and their democratic rights but has repeatedly demonstrated to be outright malice and hostile towards the Armenians in Karabakh, Armenia and in the rest of the world. This only proves that Karabakh has no secure future in any solution which puts the area under Baku's rule, but the people of Karabakh must be allowed to decide their own future. This is entirely in line with the latest existing proposal by the Minsk Group, the so-called Madrid Principles in 2007, which, among other things, establishes the self-determination right of the Karabakh people through a local referendum on the future status of the region. This is the only way to a peaceful solution to the conflict.
