“Each and every action by Azerbaijan to restore its territorial integrity and sovereignty, including the latest 24 hours counter-terrorism measures, were in line with norms and principles of international law. Azerbaijan has been always committed to protection of civilians and civilian objects within its conducted actions,” said spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Aykhan Hajizada as he commented on remarks by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk on current regional situation and on obligation to protect human rights of ethnic minorities.

“Despite the fact that during almost 30 years of Armenia’s military occupation Azerbaijanis, facing massacres and mass atrocities were deprived from all the rights, Azerbaijan has always been committed to safeguard the rights of all the ethnic minorities in its territory, including of Armenians. This has been vocally expressed by Azerbaijan’s leadership on numerous occasions.

Unfortunately, no one also called to upheld rights of around a million Azerbaijani refugees and displaces people, including ensuring their rights to return in safety and dignity. While Azerbaijan both after the 44-day war and following the anti-terrorism measures provides assistance to find whereabouts of missing persons, we do not see the same attention and scrupulosity with regard to almost 4000 missing Azerbaijanis.

We hope the calls of High Commissioner to conduct transparent investigations to ensure accountability and redress for the victims will be taken seriously by international community, who ignored calls of Azerbaijan for almost 30 years to punish perpetrators of the genocide in Khojaly, other massacres and crimes against humanity.

We also expect Armenia, following this call by UN High Representative, not to deny the rights of Azerbaijanis massively expelled from the current territory of Armenia, and ensure conditions for a dialogue to ensure their rights to return to their homes,” Hajizada added.