Human rights activist: The war was pre-planned

Open Society Foundations – Armenia, Vanadzor Office of the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, Human Rights and Protection Fund, and Protection of Rights Without Borders NGO present a fact-finding report entitled “Human Rights Violations during the 44-Day Artsakh War.”

Human rights activist Artur Sakunts presented facts about the participation of Syrian mercenaries in the 44-day war, with whom the researchers talked. According to him, in 2020, the supply of drones and weapons from Turkey to Azerbaijan increased 6-7 times, reaching $77 million.

“The combination of different factors substantiates that the war was really planned. This is information that some of it should have been collected by the National Security Service. This is what they should have done, recruited, what are the threats in our situation, what are the tendencies, at least they should have carried out preventive diplomatic and political actions. I just remember Nikol Pashinyan’s statement on the run of September 2020 that the war will never start because Russia will not allow it,” Sakunts said.

He said the report contains facts and evidence about the use of banned weapons, such as cluster bombs.

“What are our expectations? Of course, it is very strange that the Republic of Armenia does not speak about these specific war crimes on international platforms. I don’t remember the issue of mercenaries being presented in any international court, demanding to be held accountable, there is no issue of chemical weapons. There is a whole spectrum of war crimes that the issue of prosecuting them is not used at all on other platforms except the international court where the lawsuit is filed. If impunity persists, it continues to lead to continuing human rights violations. In these conditions, there can be no guarantee of security at all,” Sakunts said.