UN Secretary General António Guterres

REQUEST

Y.E. António Guterres,

The BATSUM (OPENING) civil initiative, collecting humanitarian goods of primary importance for the people of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) living under the conditions of blockade due to the anti-Armenian policy of the criminal government of Azerbaijan for nearly two months in front of the UN Armenian office, implementing the legally binding decision of the UN International Court of Justice adopted on February 22, 2023, in order to lift the blockade of Berdzor Corridor to deliver these cargoes to Artsakh under the UN flag, as well as protecting the right of Artsakh Armenians to self-determination as a right enshrined in the UN Charter, the following is recorded with great disappointment:

• the large-scale military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan since September 27, 2020, the depopulation and deprivation of people in a number of settlements before and after the establishment of the ceasefire regime, the humanitarian disaster - i.e. starvation, cases of accidental deaths due malnutrition and lack of special medicine, fetal loss among pregnant women, deliberate disruption of electricity and gas supply lines from RA to Artsakh, caused by the blockade of Berdzor corridor with internationally recognized status since December 12, 2022; more than 400 recorded killings of the peaceful people of Artsakh during the military aggression unleashed on September 19, 2023, including the innocent victims and the injured as a result of the terrible explosion that took place in Stepanakert on September 24, amid the panic caused by the threat of the Azerbaijani forces, the forced displacement of the indigenous people, the consistent mental damage created conditions incompatible with the normal life of the population in Artsakh, which are qualified as genocide according to Article 2 of the Convention "On the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide" on December 9, 1948, 

• UN bodies and agencies did not undertake all the urgent and necessary tools and procedures deriving from their powers and responsibilities defined by the 1945 Charter to prevent the ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan of more than 120,000 indigenous people living in Artsakh for centuries.

We emphasize that the governments of all countries that have strongly condemned and adopted a criminally punishable act for the denial of the Armenian Genocide, which took place in the Ottoman Empire, Western and Eastern Armenia in the years 1897-1923 and was well documented, which was accompanied by the physical destruction of a number of national minorities: Greeks, Assyrians, Arabs, Jews and others, are obliged to give the same assessment to the genocide against Artsakh, which has entered the stage of active implementation since 2020.

With the above, we assure that the misanthropic and aggressive policy coordinated by the current leader of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, destroys the international system of principles of justice and human rights. Such crimes require the international community's immediate attention and unrelenting punishment.

Therefore, we strongly demand to take the initiative to punish the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his accomplices according to international law.

With respect,

Co-ordinators of BATSUM civil initiative