The Ombudsman strongly condemned the US Congress’s biased approaches towards Azerbaijan

It is deeply regrettable that the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the United States Congress held a hearing titled “Human Rights in Azerbaijan Since the fall of Nagorno Karabakh", where the speakers presented blatantly distorted facts and unfounded opinions against Azerbaijan.  

The local-counterterrorism measures carried out by Azerbaijan in 2023 were fully in accordance with international law, including the norms and principles of international humanitarian law, and civilians were never targeted. Azerbaijan guarantees the protection of the rights and freedoms of all its citizens, regardless of their nationality, religion, language, race, or other affiliations, including its citizens of Armenian-origin living in Karabakh, as enshrined in international documents and national legislation. 

The consistent violations of international law norms and principles, as well as fundamental human rights, by Armenia during nearly thirty years of occupation, the failure to provide information to our country about the fate of around 4,000 citizens who went missing during the First Karabakh War, as well as the contamination of our lands with landmines, environmental damage, and the commission of ecocide crimes, are being overlooked while accusations are made against our country. This is a manifestation of double standards and biased attitudes towards Azerbaijan.

We once more would like to recall that as a result of Armenia’s policy of aggression, driven by unjust territorial claims against Azerbaijanis, twenty percent of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories were occupied by this country, and hundreds of thousands of our compatriots were deported from present-day Armenian territories. 

We strongly condemn the U.S. Congress for demonstrating double standards, one-sided, and biased approaches towards Azerbaijan, and instead, we call for addressing the ethnic cleansing and genocide crimes committed by Armenia against Azerbaijanis.