Azerbaijan intends to file a lawsuit against Armenia with the European Court of Justice for alleged violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In a statement on Friday, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Leyla Abdullahyeva said that her country documented grave human rights violations against Azerbaijanis after the liberation of part of the Azerbaijani territories from the Armenian occupation.
“These included cases of forced displacement, torture, killing and ill-treatment of Azerbaijanis because of their ethnic origin by Armenia,” she said.
She noted that more than a million Azerbaijanis were forced to leave their homes as a result of the Armenian aggression.
She noted that “following the Tripartite Declaration (signed by the heads of state of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia on November 10, 2020), Armenia planted mines in areas it had occupied for a while in order to prevent the return of Azerbaijanis to their homes, refused to publish mine maps, and thus continued to violate International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
In 1992, Armenia occupied about 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, which includes the “Karabakh” region, in addition to large parts of the “Aghdam” and “Fuzoli” provinces.
On September 27, 2020, the Azerbaijani army launched an operation to liberate its occupied lands in the region, and after fierce battles that lasted 44 days, Russia announced that Azerbaijan and Armenia had reached a ceasefire agreement stipulating that Azerbaijan would regain control of the occupied provinces before the end of 2020.
