The uproar continues over Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement this week that his government will support nullifying existing cases pending against Azerbaijan in international courts.
Pashinyan, during a presentation at the Atlantic Council in Washington on Tuesday confirmed that he and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan had agreed on 15 of 17 articles of a peace agreement, with the relinquishing of legal claims and the withdrawal of European monitoring mission from Armenia remained the last points of contention.
“Another article [is] about the complaints against each other in legal institutions. And the idea is to call back all those complaints. In general, we are okay with that idea as well. But what is our proposal? Not only to call back all these complaints, but not to raise all those issues in bilateral relations as well,” Pashinyan said during the Atlantic Council presentation in response to a question on the unresolved articles of the draft peace agreement with Azerbaijan.
“So our proposal is to end further discussions on the conflicting topics and to open a new era in bilateral relations starting from a new and empty and clear page,” Pashinyan emphasized.
Pashinayan’s statement sparked anger and condemnation from the international legal and rights circles. The latest to join the chorus is the first and former lead prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who emphasized that Yerevan cannot halting already exisiting investigations and cases pending in various international.
“Yerevan cannot halt the investigation into crimes against Armenians at the ICC, even though it has the right to withdraw its complaints. He emphasized that the prosecutor retains the authority to continue the investigation from the moment jurisdiction was established on May 10, 2021, and for one year following any withdrawal,” Ocampo explained.
Last year, the Armenian government ratified the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, arguing that this would allow them to file lawsuits in court against Baku’s aggression and war crimes, including the 2021-2022 invasion of the Republic of Armenia.
Pashinyan’s statement on Tuesday directly contradicts his government’s expressed intention when ratifying the statute, which at the time was criticized by Russia as Yerevan’s attempt to further alienate its alliance with Moscow.
Ocampo has been the leading international voice in calling the actions of Azerbaijan against Armenia and Armenians of Artsakh ethnic cleansing.
