NAC & Azerbaijani Canadian Community condemn FM Melanie Joly's recent comments on Azerbaijan's Garabagh

The Network of Azerbaijani Canadians (NAC) and the Azerbaijani Canadian Community released the statement on Foreign Minister Melanie Joly's recent comments regarding Azerbaijan's Garabagh region.

Azernews presents the statement:

The Network of Azerbaijani Canadians (NAC) and the Azerbaijani Canadian Community deplore the recent statement made by Canada’s Foreign Minister, Melanie Joly, where she referred to Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory of Karabakh as “Artsakh.”

“Artsakh” is an illegal, Russian-backed separatist regime on the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan, unrecognized by any country in the world, including Canada. The illegal regime has been responsible for three decades of UN-condemned occupation of Azerbaijan’s sovereign territories, over 40,000 lives lost in Armenia’s wars of invasion, the ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Azerbaijani civilians from their homes, the destruction of Azerbaijani cities, and the ongoing landmine catastrophe in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region.

The insensitivity toward Azerbaijani Canadians, who have suffered from Armenia’s invasion of Azerbaijan, mass ethnic cleansing, and massacres in the 1990s, is deplorable. This is akin to referring to the Russia-occupied parts of sovereign Ukraine by their separatist names.

This past January, Canada’s Foreign Minister’s Parliamentary Secretary rightfully expressed Canada’s support for Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity in the House of Commons. In the strongest possible terms, we condemn Minister Joly’s recent comments, which contradict Canada’s official position. The implication of the comments expressed by Canada’s Foreign Minister is irresponsible at best, detrimental to international diplomacy and the ongoing EU-facilitated peace-building process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

We have written to Minister Joly’s office requesting a meeting to discuss this is person and will await a prompt response.

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