‘When you blow up gas pipeline and leave civilians without heating, it’s not peace’ – Armenian MP to Azeri delegate

YEREVAN, APRIL 27, ARMENPRESS. Member of Parliament of Armenia from the ruling Civil Contract faction Arusyak Julhakyan responded to the statement of one of the Azerbaijani delegates during the PACE plenary session, according to which Azerbaijan has done and is doing everything for achieving peace.

In her remarks the Armenian MP said that being involved in the same organization, however, they differently perceive the fundamental values put on the basis of this organization.

“We perceive peace differently, we perceive human rights differently. When you bomb a maternity hospital, it does not lead to peace. When you behead an elderly citizen, it does not lead to peace. When you build a trophy park in the heart of your capital, by placing the humiliating and dehumanizing mannequins of Armenian soldiers there, when you proudly take children to that park and show them that mannequins and other so-called trophies, it does not lead to peace. This can lead to contempt, maybe hatred, but not peace. When you refuse to release the prisoners of war, other persons held, when you make them a subject of trade by constantly presenting new demands, it does not lead to peace. When you do not attach importance to the ECHR decisions, the PACE and the European Parliament resolutions relating to the Armenian prisoners of war, by rejecting the international tools created for protecting human rights, it does not lead to peace.

When you fire on villages, civilians living in their homeland with the use of large and small caliber weapons, it does not lead to peace.

When you deliberately blow up a gas pipeline and leave the civilian population, including children, without heating opportunity in cold weather, it is not peace.

When your armed forces threaten the civilian population with loudspeakers, forcing them to leave their homes and villages, it is not peace.

When you damage, destroy the Armenian churches, historical-cultural monuments, cemeteries even after the decision of the International Court of Justice, the respective resolutions of PACE, the European Parliament, when your president publicly orders to remove the ancient Armenian manuscripts from the Armenian churches of Nagorno Karabakh, thus, by removing the Armenian trace from that territories, it’s not peace.

Therefore, dear colleagues, by talking about peace, let’s first of all be sure that here, in this agora, we perceive that word in the same way. Maybe this will help us to start a process of building trust, a process of building peace, and finally bring real peace to our region”, the MP said.