On 22 April, Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. Mher Margaryan wrote to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres regarding the incendiary rhetoric of the President of Azerbaijan threatening to use force against the Republic of Armenia. Here’s a portion of the letter.

Such statements come to demonstrate, once again, Azerbaijan’s blatant espousals of ideology of warmongering, violence and incitement of anti-Armenian hatred, and constitute a clearly detectable indication of threat directed not only against the Armenian people and their right to life in their homeland, but also to the peace and security of the region as a whole.

They also manifest, in most explicit terms, that Azerbaijan, indeed, unleashed the war and destruction amidst global pandemic in 2020, in an attempt to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by force, contrary to its pre-eminent obligations under international law, which prohibits the use of force to resolve disputes, and in flagrant violation of the UN Secretary-General’s appeal for an immediate global ceasefire.”

Armenia condemns the promulgation of incendiary rhetoric, racist ideology and threats to use force, which only serve to destabilize the situation in the region and reaffirms the imperative of the full and timely implementation, in good faith, of the commitments under the international humanitarian law, in particularly related to the release of the prisoners of war, hostages and other detained persons.