Armenia completely rejects Azerbaijan's claims of ethnic cleansing: Lawrence Martin

As on Monday, today I will also present Armenia's preliminary objections to the issue of the court's temporal jurisdiction. Lawrence Martin, a lawyer representing the interests of Armenia at the UN International Court of Justice, said.

 

He gave a general overview of everyone's speeches.

 

"In what was clearly a coordinated effort, all of yesterday’s speakers made repeated reference to a so-called “ethnic cleansing campaign” that was said to be ongoing even now, thirty years since the end of the first Nagorno-Karabakh War.

 

The purpose of this coordinated effort was undoubtedly to make it seem that the issue of the critical date in this case is unimportant because what happened more than three decades ago is all bound up together with what it still happening now in a single package encompassing the entire period. Our friends’ effort is, however, seriously misguided. There can be no doubt on this matter. As I said on Monday, Armenia roundly rejects Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing claims, but that is an issue for the merits.

 

What matters now is that even on Azerbaijan’s own factual allegations, any alleged ethnic cleansing was completed by 1994, well before the critical date in September 1996," he said.

 

According to the lawyer, Azerbaijan did not present the definition of the concept of ethnic cleansing on Monday.

 

"According to the two definitions of the UN commission, if the civilian population of an area is removed, once everyone has left, the ethnic cleansing is over. To be sure, the effects may continue afterwards but the act is completed.

 

The Court should not be tempted by Azerbaijan’s transparent ploy of relabeling what are obviously subsequent, discrete events as part of this supposedly continuing “campaign of ethnic cleansing”,” he said.