Ministry of Agriculture called on international partners to condemn Armenia’s military aggression

The Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan called on international partners to condemn Armenia’s military aggression. The appeal strongly condemns the military operations of the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is noted that dozens of civilians, including children, were killed and hundreds were injured as a result of continuous shooting of civilians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding cities and regions of Azerbaijan.

Almost 30 years of occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and adjacent districts of Azerbaijan’s current military provocations of the armed forces of the republic of Armenia contradict the resolutions 822, 853, 874, 884 of 1993 of the Security Council of the United Nations recognized Nagorno-Karabakh region and adjacent areas an integral part of Azerbaijan and demanded immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and return to their homes more than a million refugees and internally displaced people.

Agriculture, which is the main part of the employment, is one of the main driving areas of the Azerbaijani economy. The aggression of Armenia had a negative impact on more than 30% of Azerbaijan’s arable land, food production and other sectors of the economy, which created jobs and provided rural development. Such illegal actions limit farmers’ ability to live a decent and safe life, and are a source of serious threat to regional food security, given the worldwide calls for the establishment of a sustainable food safety system as the main task in the conditions of the “COVID-19” pandemic.

Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan coincides with the period of intensive harvest. This aggression caused serious threats to the unique and clean-blooded Karabakh breeding horses, more than 500 large and small-sized animals were killed in the villages located on the contact line, farmers’ food was burned, harvesting in tens of thousands of hectares of arable land was restricted, agricultural machinery was destroyed and irrigation systems were put out of order. This conflict, which affects the lives of more than 100,000 farmers, causes great losses in the agricultural sector of Azerbaijan.

All military crimes committed by Armenia are obvious evidence of violations of international norms and obligations based on human rights, as well as UN Sustainable Development Goals based on international law, such as the FAO and EU’s strategies on agriculture and food security.

The Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic of Azerbaijan calls on its international partners to resolutely condemn the military escalation committed by the republic of Armenia, causing a serious humanitarian disaster, creating an unprecedented threat to agricultural activity, undermining food security and agrobiodiversity not only of Azerbaijan but of the region as a whole.