Human Rights Watch urges to guarantee right to return of ethnic Armenians to Artsakh

Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged governments involved in facilitating talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia to secure concrete commitments from Azerbaijan’s president on respecting, protecting, and implementing the right to return of ethnic Armenians from Artsakh.

“More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians, nearly the entire current population of the area, have fled in recent days.

Azerbaijan’s plan for reintegration of the region and its residents should set out how, in both the short and long-term, it will respect human rights, in particular those of ethnic minorities; and it should welcome an independent mission for sustained international monitoring of these commitments.

Azerbaijan’s partners should insist on an international monitoring mission to report publicly on conditions facing ethnic Armenians who have remained in Nagorno-Karabakh, and to identify human rights violations, particularly those that would undermine ethnic Armenians’ right to return to their homes. Partner governments should also urge Azerbaijani authorities to take substantive steps to facilitate the right to return, either for short-term visits or for the longer-term.

Azerbaijan’s partners should send an unambiguous message to the country’s leadership that when it comes to the right to return, they will not accept hollow rhetoric and half measures. The fear and lack of trust on all sides make a sustained international presence essential for the right to return to be meaningful, not theoretical.

The European Council President, Charles Michel, has facilitated a series of talks between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. A meeting between the two leaders had been planned on the sidelines of the European Political Community (EPC) summit in Granada on October 5, 2023, with Michel’s participation together with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. On October 4, Azerbaijani media announced that Aliyev had refused to participate in the talks at the last minute, against the backdrop of the French foreign minister’s October 3 visit to Armenia and other developments.

In possible future talks, European leaders should underscore the need for commitment to international rights monitoring and a comprehensive rights-compliant vision for the region that might encourage people to return. In an October 3 media interview, Michel urged Azerbaijan to “show goodwill by engaging, while respecting international law, to protect the rights and security of the entire population that lives in Azerbaijan, including the Armenian population,” HRW wrote.