YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 28, ARMENPRESS. If any nation has ever had the right to self-determination, than Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh have the same right and no Azerbaijani official can deny this universal right, head of International Organizations Department of MFA Armenia Vahram Kazhoyan said during a discussion held in the sidelines of the 71st UN General Assembly. He also referred to a number of other issues such as the Azerbaijani  disinformation regarding the events of Khojaly, and the fact that the League of Nations had accepted Armenia’s and Georgia’s requests for the admission to the organization, while denying the Azerbaijani request.  Kazhoyan also drew parallels between the situation of religious and ethnic minorities in the two countries. “Armenpress” presents the full speech of Vahram Kazhoyan.

“Thank you, Madame Chairperson and sorry for taking the floor once again. When somebody says it is an established truth I definitely and certainly want to hear who it is established by, where and what are the proofs. Otherwise, there is nothing established until something is proven and established and you can prove it.

Speaking about Khojaly, it is strange that Azerbaijani delegation is speaking about Khojaly, because again I mentioned about the short memory. If one would be able to read the newspapers of Azerbaijan of the time, it would be perfectly clear who committed the Khojaly killings. It was then leadership of Azerbaijan and it was all over the newspapers of the country. I definitely do agree about the ISIL pattern which was created in Khojaly, but that pattern was created by the Azerbaijani troops who were killing their own civilian population. Armenian troops, were, on the contrary, opening free peace corridor for the civilian population to withdraw from the scene of fighting.

Coming back to the issue of self-determination, the current negotiations, as it was well-mentioned, headed by the Minsk group Co-chairs, carried out under three basic principles: self-determination of nations, territorial integrity and non-use of force and threat of use of force. So, how can someone not talk about self-determination? Self-determination resulted in 193 member-states of the current United Nations. If any nation has had the right to be self-determined, then Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh have the same right to and no Azerbaijani official can deny this universal human right to them.

It is interesting also to talk about the situation of 1918-1920. What is interesting, the League of Nations has accepted Armenia’s and Georgia’s request for the admission to the League of Nations. League of Nations refused Azerbaijan’s request to get to the League of Nations because of the territorial problems and unresolved issues with its neighbours.

Speaking about the glorification or remembering about the terrorism, Azerbaijan is the first country who harbours criminals, terrorists by granting them the status of a hero. Well, everybody remembers the story when the Azerbaijani officer murdered with an axe sleeping Armenian officer during NATO exercises in Hungary, in Budapest. The Hungarian court got a sentence of life imprisonment for this axe-murderer, but then he was transferred to Azerbaijan to continue his sentence in Azerbaijan. The moment his plane landed in Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani president pardoned him, granted him all of the possible heroization and glorification, and he became a national hero of Azerbaijan. I cannot believe, if a nation’s hero is someone like Safarov, and someone who is a hero just because of the fact that he has killed an Armenian, what is the future of this nation?

Armenia is a home to 12 national and religious minorities, some of them, Yazidis, Assyrians not having a state and they are very happy living in Armenia guaranteed all of their rights. Azerbaijani people were also living in Armenia, with their rights guaranteed. But with the outburst of massacres in Azerbaijan, where every single Armenian was massacred; there out of about half a million Armenian population in Azerbaijan not a single Armenian remains today in Azerbaijan despite the fact that the Azerbaijani authorities again quote some falsified numbers about this. So who is more tolerant and who is not? I would leave this rhetorical question to you. Thank you”.