What Azerbaijan did was not an “anti-terrorist operation” but ethnic cleansing: Daniel Ioannisyan’s speech at the HDIM meeting of OSCE participating states

The OSCE ODIHR Human Dimensions Conference is taking place in Warsaw these days․ In his speech on October 3, Daniel Ioannisyan, Programs Coordinator at Union of Informed Citizens NGO, countered the claims regarding alleged ill-treatment of the Azerbaijani prisoners of war by the Armenian side.

Ioannisyan reminded that no Azerbaijani prisoner died in Armenian captivity but Azerbaijanis executed not only disarmed Armenian soldiers but also civilians.

«Madame moderator,

I would like to respond to some statements by Azerbaijani NGOs. There was a statement about mistreatment of Azerbaijani POWs in Armenia. But they are silent about the fact that no Azerbaijani POW was executed or killed while detained by the Armenian side. Unlike at least 14 filmed cases, where Azerbajiani soldiers executied detained and disarmed Armenian soldiers and even civilians.

For example, two civilians in the city of Hadrout in Nagorno Karabakh, who did non manage to escape from the city before the arrival of Azerbaijani troops in 2020. Or mass execution of 7 Armenian POWs in 2022 during Azerbajiani aggression against Armenia’s sovereign territory. All those cases were filmed and published by Azerbaijanis and no prosecution followed.

And of course, there are a number of cases when Azeri officers tortured Armenian POWs and captured civilians. Like throwing food on the ground and forcing the captives to eat it.  Very often Azeri officers put their finger into the wound so that captives start begging for treatment. Torturing Armenians through splashing them with cold water and boiling water is a very famous practice in Azerbaijani detention centers.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Also, I would like to respond to statements regarding detained former leaders of Nagorno Karabakh. Azerbaijani Government and some NGOs are calling them terrorists. But they have nothing to do with terrorism, they were elected politicians (by the way, elected in better elections than in Azerbaijan, but that’s another story), who were trying to prevent what Azerbaijan managed to do in September last year – ethnic cleansing.

And what Azerbaijan did last September, calling it “Anti-terrorism operation”, was not about fighting terrorism. It was about organizing ethnic cleansing. Otherwise, it turns out that there were 100 thousand terrorists living in Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan successfully cleaned Nagorno Karabakh from 100 thousand terrorists.

Thank you very much».