Azerbaijan Trade Unions Confederation (ATUC) issued a statement criticizing the European Parliament.
The reason for this was the resolution adopted by the latter on January 19 this year regarding the blockade of the Lachin-Khankendi road.
Emphasizing that the blockade has caused a humanitarian crisis in the region where 120,000 Armenians live, the resolution requires the Azerbaijani government to restore the operation of transport, energy, and communication means between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Based on the requirements in the document, the ATUC stated that the European Parliament did not show an adequate attitude to the events.
"The European Parliament did not raise its voice even once against Armenia, which occupied the lands of Azerbaijan," the ATUC said.
Fakt Yoxla examined whether this claim was true.
It turned out that the European Parliament, in its resolution adopted in 2010, expressed serious concern about the situation of hundreds of thousands of IDPs displaced as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The document states that international forces should be deployed in the region in accordance with the UN Charter, and Armenian military units should be withdrawn from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
President Ilham Aliyev positively evaluated this statement.
"This resolution is very fair, it fully reveals the essence of the conflict, and concrete proposals for the withdrawal of the occupying forces from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan are reflected in it. Each new decision, especially the resolution adopted by the European Parliament and similar resolutions, strengthens our position, in short, it shows its support for a fair solution to the issue," Aliyev stressed.
Excerpt from the resolution adopted by the European Parliament in 2010
In the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on the association agreement with Armenia in 2012, it stipulated that Armenia should release the regions around Nagorno-Karabakh from occupation and withdraw its military and physical contingent from this region.
On October 23, 2013, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the European Neighborhood Policy program.
Paragraph 16 of the resolution states, “the occupation by one country of the Eastern Partnership of the territory of another violates the fundamental principles and objectives of the Eastern Partnership and that the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should comply with UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of 1993 and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Basic Principles.” Official Yerevan also criticized the European Parliament for this resolution.
In 2015, a member of the European Parliament from Finland and the president of the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, Heidi Hautala, said that the European Parliament does not deny the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In June 2020, the delegation of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Partnership Committee adopted a statement condemning the construction of a new highway from Armenia to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
“As a matter of principle, we support projects that foster regional cooperation, connectivity and people-to-people contacts in the Eastern Neighbourhood. That said, the decision to build this highway has been taken without the consent of the competent authorities of Azerbaijan –in violation of international law. In addition, it could symbolically entrench the illegal occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh and of its surrounding districts. Therefore, we very much deplore this initiative as it does not help to create conditions conducive to trust, peace and reconciliation,” the statement said.
The document was signed by the head of the delegation, Marina Kaljurand, the standing rapporteur of the European Parliament on Armenia, Traian Băsescu, and the standing rapporteur of the European Parliament on Azerbaijan, Željana Zovko.
Thus, Armenia's occupation of Azerbaijan's territories was emphasized in the resolutions adopted by the European Parliament. These documents demanded the return of those territories to Azerbaijan.
Fakt Yoxla concludes that ATUC’s claim is False.
