EU rep calls for prosecution of anti-Azerbaijani war crimes

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

Toivo Klaar, EU special representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia, has urged the punishment of perpetrators of war crimes against Azerbaijanis, Azernews reports.

“Today I have been sent several videos apparently showing war crimes committed against Azerbaijanis. Also, these need to be investigated, and if authentic, perpetrators need to be held responsible. The conflict has left deep wounds on both sides and to heal accountability is needed,” Klaar wrote on his Twitter account.

Previously, Klaar made a similar comment about suspected war crimes against Armenian military personnel featured in a social media video.

“Another horrible video has emerged of Armenian prisoners of war apparently being executed. If this video is proven to be authentic then this is a war crime that needs to be investigated and the perpetrators punished,” he tweeted.

Baku described Yerevan's allegations of suspected Azerbaijani armed forces war crimes against Armenian personnel “as an example of the hypocrisy of a country that has pursued an aggressive policy for decades, trampled on the fundamental rights of nearly a million people, and committed numerous war crimes against military personnel, as well as civilians”.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry underlined that the Azerbaijani Military Prosecutor's Office initiated a comprehensive investigation on September 17 to ascertain if the films, shared on social media, as well as the time and place of recording, and the identities of the military troops seen in them, are genuine or not.

The ministry emphasized that since the first Karabakh war (1988-1994), the Armenian armed forces have committed unprecedented massacres not only against Azerbaijani servicemen but also against civilians. In just one night on February 26, 1992, 613 civilians were brutally killed in the town of Khojaly, and no information on the fate of 4,000 Azerbaijanis has been provided yet.

In October 2020, Armenia launched missile attacks against civilians in Azerbaijan’s Ganja, Barda, and Mingachevir cities committing crimes against humanity.

The Armenian-planted landmines are posing threat to the lives of people in the region, killing up to 250 persons, most of whom were civilians, since the end of the 44-day war in 2020, the ministry said.

“We strongly condemn Armenia's attempts to mislead the international community and hide its responsibility by spreading unfounded claims. We demand that Armenia fulfills its international obligations and that those responsible for numerous war crimes be held accountable before the law,” the ministry stressed.