Statement by Permanent Representative of Armenia to UN at UN SC Debate on Civilian Protection

25 June, 2012

On June 25, 2012, a meeting on Civilian Protection in Armed Conflicts was held at UN Security Council. With more than 50 speakers making statements, including Secretary General and Council members, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs briefed the Council on progress made in responding to the core challenges of: enhancing compliance by parties to conflict with international law; enhancing compliance by non-State armed groups; enhancing protection by United Nations peacekeeping and other relevant missions; improving humanitarian access; and enhancing accountability for violations.
Garen Nazarian, the Permanent Representative of Armenia, shared concerns about civilians in armed conflict, which constituted an overwhelming majority of victims, with women and children being the most vulnerable group. According to Nazarian, ensuring accountability and enhancing compliance by parties to a conflict with international legal obligations should be viewed as key to the Council’s responsibility to maintain international peace and security. He mentioned that bettering the use of sanctions and implementing binding resolutions calling for all States to adopt legislation for the persecution of people responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes were important. Garen Nazarian added that the accountability for those crimes was important in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution. He continued that Azerbaijan had the primary duty to provide accountability for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in connection with hundreds of thousands of Armenians who had been displaced and become refugees, as a result of ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan in the 1980s and 1990s, in response to that NKR’s exercise of its right to self-determination, as well as Azerbaijanis massacred in one town by the Azerbaijani national front.

He said some of territories of Armenia and Arstakh had been invaded and, for the last 20 years, been under the occupation of the Azerbaijani Armed Forces. Civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh had been subject to heavy artillery, shelling and bombing. The Azerbaijani Army had fired at hospitals and schools. Armenia had taken humanitarian actions to mitigate civilian suffering by exercising its responsibility to protect the population’s physical security, in line with humanitarian and human rights law. It was concerned at the humanitarian impact of the use of force by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh.

According to Armenia’s Permanent Representative, there were fundamental differences between the protection of civilians in armed conflict and the responsibility to protect. He said that in the Nagorno-Karabakh context, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs and the Secretary-General had called on parties to implement confidence-building measures, notably to remove civilian threats. Nazarian called on Azerbaijan to cease all violence along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. A lasting solution to the problem must be achieved only through peaceful means, based on international law and within the agreed international format. He concluded that the Council’s approach must be built on an understanding that any resolution should impartially address the root causes of conflict under discussion, and provide security guarantees to the populations concerned.

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