President of the European Council
Mr. Charles Michel
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Subject: Your participation in COP29
Dear President Michel,
Brussels, 12 November 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a pan-European civil society organisation with committees in fourteen European countries
and simply as EU citizens who are committed to human rights, human dignity, we find your
recent congratulatory statement to President Aliyev on hosting COP29 on X demeaning for
someone who represents the EU on the highest level and speaks on its behalf.
We do understand the necessity of diplomatic courtesy. Nevertheless, diplomacy never equals
to undermining the moral credibility of a whole political Union such as the EU, certainly not
to please the authoritarian leader of a small oil dictatorship such as Azerbaijan which
committed an ethnic cleansing a year ago, as testified by the European Parliament several
times.
On 24 October 2024 the Plenary of the European Parliament adopted a resolution with a
vast majority, condemning Azerbaijan for violations of human rights and international
law. Paragraph Q of the resolution emphasizes that Azerbaijan\u2019s attack on Nagorno
Karabakh \u201crepresents a gross violation of human rights and international law, a clear
breach of the trilateral ceasefire statement of 9 November 2020 and a failure to uphold
commitments made during EU-mediated negotiations\u201d.
President Michel, we would like to remind you that the EU-mediated negotiations were
led by you. Azerbaijan thus failed to uphold the commitments made to the EU and to
you personally as the chief negotiator on behalf of the EU. In fact, you had publicly
emphasized several times that the fundamental rights of the Armenian population of
Nagorno Karabakh were a matter of principle for the EU. In response, Azerbaijan
carried out a textbook example of an ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, we must observe
that not only your mediation failed but also your activity in its aftermath continues to
damage the reputation of the EU.
Since 2021 the European Parliament has adopted several resolutions on Nagorno Karabakh,
Armenia and Azerbaijan, all of which have very clear messages addressed to the Azerbaijani
government and to the EU executive leadership. We thus once again urge you to respect the
voice of the only democratically elected institution of the EU and for once act in the spirit of
these resolutions, in particular now that you are in Baku, participating in COP29 and you are
concluding your mandate as the President of the European Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In paragraph 15 of the October 24th resolution, the European Parliament i.a. calls on the
Azerbaijani authorities to release all 23 Armenian prisoners of war, detained following
Azerbaijan\u2019s retaking of Nagorno Karabakh. We are therefore asking you to use all Your
leverage to explicitly demand the release of the fifteen Armenian prisoners of war and the
eight former high-ranking officials of Nagorno Karabakh. It is imperative that all the twenty
three hostages are released and not just some of them. Otherwise, selectively setting some of
them free, would be a further attempt by President Aliyev to greenwash his regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sincerely,
Kaspar Karampetian
President<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President of the European CouncilMr. Charles Michel Subject: Your participation in COP29Dear President Michel,Brussels, 12 November 2024 As a pan-European civil society organisation with committees in fourteen European countriesand simply as EU citizens who are committed to human rights, human dignity, we find yourrecent congratulatory statement to President Aliyev on hosting COP29 on X demeaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23055,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[143,405],"class_list":["post-23054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-european-armenian-federation-eafjd","tag-405"],"yoast_head":"\n