“You can’t act like you don’t know.” One month before COP 29 on climate change which will open in Baku, Anahit Akopian calls on European leaders. After Brussels, Paris, Lyon and before London and Berlin, the president of the Committee for the Defense of the Armenian Cause (CDCA) was Saturday in Marseille.
His delegation, composed in particular of the former Minister of State of Artsakh, Artak Beglaryan and human rights experts, Arman Tatoyan and Karnig Kerkonian, denounces the crimes committed by Azerbaijan against the Armenian people .
The objective is precise: to mobilize the international community and put pressure on the Azerbaijani government to free 23 Armenian hostages before the major conference. “There is urgency. After COP 29, we will no longer have leverage, insists Anahit Akopian. Among the prisoners there are former presidents of the Republic of Artsakh, a former speaker of the National Assembly, ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defense. The testimonies of the hostages who left the Baku jails are terrifying: burns, surgeries without anesthesia, torture, deprivation of food… We must act, their lives are in danger. As long as the prisoners are held, participating in the COP means being complicit in Azerbaijan’s actions.“
French elected officials like Anne Hidalgo, Valérie Pécresse, Xavier Bertrand and Benoît Payan and Renaud Muselier have already announced their boycott, pointing out the contradiction between the ambitions of the event and the practices of Baku. Stopping at the Old Port, where the large diaspora lives in peace and security, the experts met the deputy mayor, Yannick Ohanessian (PS), before leading a time of discussions at the Acte 12 theater.
“Awaken citizens”
“We want to awaken citizens to the cause of the hostages and their conditions of confinement. Explain the genocidal intention of Azerbaijan which wants to erase the presence and identity of the Armenians in Upper Kharabagh, by physically attacking civilians and heritage, they specify with one voice, severe. In 2022, before the attack, there were 120,000 living in this territory. Today, there are only 14 left. People who can no longer move… All the others have fled.“
While history tirelessly repeats itself, this tour is also an opportunity to denounce the greenwashing strategy deployed by the President of Azerbaijan to improve his image in the eyes of the world.
“It is an exporter of gas and oil, a mine operator and 90% of its economy is based on hydrocarbons!, underlines Artak Beglaryan, indignant. Due to the ethnic cleansing of Armenians, the repression of its own population and all the corruption, this country should never have hosted the COP.”
The CDCA also hopes to pave the way for the return of the people of Artsakh to their lands, at a time when other Armenian regions are threatened. “Azeri troops are already established in the South, it could start again. We won’t let it happen. Now we have to take action“, conclude the experts.
