YEREVAN, MARCH 25, ARMENPRESS. Permanent Representative of Armenia to the United Nations Mher Margaryan’s letter to the Secretary General has been published as an official document of the UNSC and the General Assembly.

Margaryan wrote the letter with reference to the groundless, repetitive and false accusations by Azerbaijan which have already been repudiated on several occasions.

Below is the full letter:

“I am writing with reference to the letter of the Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan dated 26 January (A/77/714-S/2023/62) and its annex containing groundless, repetitive and false accusations, which have already been repudiated on several occasions. As ever, Azerbaijan’s allegations rely heavily upon deliberate distortions and fabrications. The statement claiming that “Armenia recruits children in armed forces and armed groups” is erroneous and intentionally deceptive, as is everything that follows this propagandistic narrative. To begin with, there is no evidence in the “report” by an unknown author to support Azerbaijan’s baseless claim that Armenia is recruiting child soldiers. While accusing Armenia of “actively using children in its armed forces and armed groups”, the “report” fails to provide any independent, credible sources beyond the self-serving references to Azerbaijan’s own statements, letters and communications. The very rare external references which Azerbaijan has included in its “report” to substantiate the “child recruitment” accusations are limited to the publications by Child Soldiers International from two decades ago. It could be of peculiar interest to recollect here that, back in 2008, citing “confidential sources”, the same organization observed that, in Azerbaijan, 17 -yearolds who graduated from military secondary schools could go straight into military service, and that military cadets as young as 17 years old were actually considered to be members of the armed forces. One could conclude, in this regard, that, in the light of the reports indicative of Azerbaijan’s systematic practice of recruiting individuals who have not attained the minimum age of 18 into the armed forces, the true purpose of the “report” is to divert attention from Azerbaijan’s own record of child recruitment. Azerbaijan’s practice of proliferating counter-allegations based on disinformation is not new. Suffice it to recall that, back in 2020, in the face of the mounting body of credible evidence and multiple international accounts confirming that Azerbaijan had, in fact, employed terrorists and mercenaries from the Middle East and introduced them into the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone,  Azerbaijan followed a similar pattern of behaviour by manufacturing a “report” which accused Armenia and a number of individuals of Armenian origin of nothing less than “terrorism”. As has already been communicated earlier through the letter of the Permanent Representative of Armenia dated 9 March 2021,  which essentially dismissed all “terrorism” allegations, and to which Azerbaijan has never responded, such accusations are based exclusively on anecdotal, uncorroborated information largely self-reported by Azerbaijan and, as such, can be considered as neither objective nor credible. Moreover, Azerbaijan’s continued references to its own defamatory publication, which targets individuals of Armenian origin by labelling them as “terrorists” or “mercenaries” with no proof whatsoever, is nothing short of sheer manifestation of incitement and promotion of racial hatred and discrimination by officials and public institutions – a policy from which Azerbaijan has been asked to refrain by the International Court of Justice.  It is, indeed, a source of grave concern that Azerbaijan’s narratives continue to be conceived and formulated exclusively from the perspective of hate and long - standing policies of Armenophobia. This is particularly true with reference to the allegations involving the non-governmental organizations engaged in nothing more than self-defence preparedness, education and training for the civilian population in Armenia, to which Azerbaijan continues to refer as “ethno-nationalist hate armed groups”, despite the fact that Azerbaijan’s claims that blatantly mischaracterize the character of such organizations and activities have been effectively repudiated during the inter-State proceedings within the International Court of Justice. Azerbaijan’s incessant speculations, at this time using the “child recruitment” narrative, are demonstrative of yet another ill-conceived effort to engage in one-sided propaganda and to obfuscate the well-known facts regarding the dire human rights situation in Azerbaijan, as well as those surrounding the causes and consequences of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. At the core of such an intentionally deceptive narrative is the brazen denial of the mass atrocities committed against the Armenian people, as well as Azerbaijan’s ongoing policy of the use of force and threat of force to achieve its expansionist goals in our region. It has been well known and extensively documented that, for the past three decades, Azerbaijan has been actively promulgating dehumanizing anti-Armenian rhetoric, creating an image of an enemy among its public, including among children, as part of war preparations. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance of the Council of Europe: “Political leaders, educational institutions and media have continued using hate speech against Armenians; an entire generation of Azerbaijanis has now grown up listening to this hateful rhetoric”.  Over the years, Azerbaijan has been weaponizing children for propaganda against Armenia and the Armenian people. The Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe has similarly observed the large extent of hate rhetoric, hostility and victimhood, which may have an impact on prospects for future reconciliation.  Notably, propagating hatred towards Armenians is part and parcel of early education in Azerbaijan, where preschoolers are asked to name their enemy and taught to respond “Armenians” in unison.  That a country where human rights are systematically abused and which continuously commits acts that “could amount to various war crimes in contravention of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, of which Azerbaijan is a party”  should resort to misusing the rights of the child for propaganda purposes amounts to an exceptional degree of hypocrisy that is only commensurate with the level of violence and criminality that Azerbaijan has steadily demonstrated in the region, in flagrant disregard of the rights of the children affected by Azerbaijan’s brutal, senseless aggression. Notably, the large-scale military hostilities unleashed by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 came to be accompanied by systematic indiscriminate attacks against the civilian infrastructure and civilian population, in violation of international humanitarian law, in particular, article 51 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Azerbaijan’s indiscriminate attacks have taken the lives of children and left many wounded.  Azerbaijan continues to violate the rights of children, having caused crisis and displacement during its military attack against Armenia in September 2022, which exposed a number of villages and towns inside the territory of Armenia to massive attacks by heavy artillery and uncrewed aerial vehicles. As a result of such actions, the inalienable right to education has been violated for 25,000 children from the Gegharkunik, Vayots Dzor and Syunik Provinces of the Republic of Armenia. The ongoing blockade of the Lachin Corridor imposed since 12 December 2022, which has resulted in the disruption of the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to the Republic of Armenia and to the outside world, continues to have a detrimental effect on the rights of the children in Nagorno-Karabakh, whereby the activities of 41 kindergartens and 56 preschool groups had to be completely suspended, with 6,828 children essentially deprived of the opportunity to receive care and exercise their right to education. Azerbaijan needs to cease its glaring attempts to accuse Armenia of its own malfeasance, including by way of misusing the rights of the child for outright propaganda purposes, and commit, instead, in good faith, to the implementation of the existing legal obligations, including those stemming from the legally binding orders issued by the International Court of Justice. As a firm supporter of the goals, objectives and principles enshrined in the Safe Schools Declaration, the Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (Paris Principles) and the Vancouver Principles on Peacekeeping and the Prevention of the Recruitment and Use of Child Soldiers, Armenia believes that the protection of the rights of all children and, in particular, those residing in conflict areas must be at the centre of all efforts in support of the collective commitment of leaving no child behind. I kindly ask that the present letter be circulated as a document of the General Assembly, under agenda items 30, 64, 66, 67, 68 and 132 and of the Security Council,” reads the letter.