The Commissioner received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to the Republic of Azerbaijan

The Commissioner for Human Rights (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ms. Sabina Aliyeva received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Israel to the Republic of Azerbaijan, Mr. George Deek.

The Commissioner said that the relations of friendship and cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel are built not only on economic and strategic points, but also on traditional historical and cultural roots, that the peoples of Azerbaijan and Israel have always demonstrated to the world an example of coexistence based on mutual understanding and tolerance in difficult periods of history.

During the meeting, the Commissioner informed about the mass human rights violations as a result of Armenia’s policy of occupation and military aggression against Azerbaijan. She noted that the military and political leadership of Armenia, ignoring the requirements of international law, is intensively firing on the Azerbaijani civilian settlements with prohibited artillery.

As a result, a large number of civilians were killed or injured in a number of cities, districts and villages, including Ganja, the second largest city in Azerbaijan. The Commissioner has noted with regret that children, women and people with disabilities were among those killed and injured and this shows that Armenia continues to carry out terrorist activities targeting civilians, as it did in the early 1990s.

The Commissioner has noted that the civilian settlements subjected to artillery attacks by the Armenian armed forces are located far from the conflict zone, and in its turn, clearly proves that the Armenian political leadership is openly trying to expand the conflict zone that would cause to more casualties and emerging a humanitarian crisis in the region.

The Commissioner has also noted that since September 27 this year, as part of a fact-finding mission, she has visited civilian settlements that were hit by rockets as a result of Armenia’s military aggression and military provocations against Azerbaijan with new land claims, and met with injured civilians and relatives of the killed ones. It was noted that in total four interim reports have been prepared on the basis of factual materials collected during the investigation and they were sent to relevant international organizations.

The Commissioner also brought to the attention of the Ambassador that this afternoon the Armenian armed forces again subjected to shellings the densely populated area of Barda city and the location of commercial facilities with cluster bombs, which are prohibited by international law, killing more than 20 civilians and injuring more than 60 others, civil infrastructure facilities and vehicles were also severely damaged.

The Ambassador thanked the Commissioner for the warm reception and noted that the friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Israel have deep historical roots. Relations between the two countries in the fields of economy, energy, security and tourism, as well as relations between the peoples of Azerbaijan and Israel are at a very high level.

Mr. G. Deek said he was deeply saddened by the military attacks on civilians and went to Ganja and Mingachevir to get acquainted with the situation and met with those injured and faced destructions of properties. It was noted that the state of Israel has always supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and this position has not changed.

The Commissioner expressed her deep gratitude to the Ambassador for the interesting exchange of views and also stressed the necessity to further strengthen the cooperation between the ombudsman institutions of the two countries in the field of effective protection of human rights.

A number of other issues were discussed at the meeting.