Artsakh Parliament Announcement on Anniversary of Independence Referendum

Members of the Artsakh National Assembly, who were forcibly displaced and now reside in Armenia, marked the anniversary of Artsakh’s Independence Referendum of 1991, as well as the International Days of Human Rights and the Prevention of genocides, by visiting the Yerablur National Cemetery on Sunday, December 10, 2023.

To mark those occasions, they also issued the following announcement:

In the annals of the Artsakh National Liberation Struggle, the independence referendum of 1991 became the founding of the republic based on self-determination and democratic principles. The Independence Referendum of 1991 was the cornerstone on which the Republic of Artsakh was built and became the pride and beacon of victory for all Armenians. On the same day in 2006, the people of Artsakh once again expressed their will to have an independent state and to continue their struggle for freedom through the referendum adopting the Constitution.

On September 19, 2023, as a result of Azerbaijan’s military attack, hundreds of our compatriots were killed, including women and children, and Artsakh — the millennia-old homeland of the Armenian people — was depopulated.

Given the impossibility of guaranteeing security and rights, the population of Artsakh resorted to the extreme step of abandoning its homeland. The international community also gave its assessment of all this. The foreign ministries of France and Cyprus, the German Bundestag, the parliaments of Austria and the Netherlands, the European Parliament, the Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide, and other authoritative international organizations described what happened in Nagorno Karabakh as ethnic cleansing.

After committing genocide against Armenians, Azerbaijan forced the President of the Republic of Artsakh to sign a document, as a precondition for the cessation of hostilities, in order to appease international stakeholders and justify its actions.

From the onset, the document imposed by Azerbaijan was unconstitutional, given the inherent dangers of the population facing genocide, hindering their free movement and arbitrary arrests, the president adopted a decree by which the state institutions of Artsakh would be dissolved by January 1, 2024, and the population would make a decision. to leave the homeland or stay under Azerbaijani rule.

Taking into account the intensity of the steps taken by the parties interested in the final closure of the Artsakh issue and the aggressive behavior of the parties interested in it, the National Assembly reaffirms its commitment to stand up for the rights of the people of Artsakh and expresses its readiness to discuss all contentious issues with the interested parties.

The National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh, continues to remain faithful to the mandate bestowed on it as a result of the expression of the free will of the people of Artsakh, and is determined to protect the rights and freedoms achieved by the blood and sweat of thousands of Armenians.