Artsakh’s Foreign Ministry Comments on Mkrtchyan’s Absence from Europa League Final

Amid the ongoing deterioration of the situation related to intolerance in Azerbaijan, the international community bears a collective responsibility to influence the Azerbaijani authorities to stop the incitement of hatred and eliminate the negative phenomena it causes. This was stated by the Information and Public Relations Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Artsakh, responding to the absence of Armenian player Henrikh Mkrtchyan at the Europa League final held in Baku due to Azerbaijan's racist stance.

The full text of the statement is presented below:

“The processes related to the Europa League final game held in Baku, particularly the fact that Henrikh Mkrtchyan, the midfielder of London’s Arsenal and captain of the Armenian national football team, was forced to miss the match, as well as the inability of numerous Armenian fans to travel to Baku to watch the game, once again prove that the negative consequences of decades-long state policy aimed at sowing hatred cannot be overcome in an instant. The sporting event, which could have contributed to the reconciliation of the societies of the conflicting parties, had the opposite effect and highlighted the degree of Azerbaijan's reluctance towards anything associated with Armenians.

In this context, it should be noted that Azerbaijani authorities have actively used hatred towards Armenians in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a tool for the coercive suppression of the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination. Over the years, intolerance towards Armenians in Azerbaijan has not only remained unchanged but has started to penetrate all areas of public life, including education. The report of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance states that in Azerbaijan, “politicians, educational institutions, and media continue to promote anti-Armenian sentiment; an entire generation of Azerbaijani people has grown up hearing this rhetoric of hatred” (CRI(2016)17, p. 9).

The promotion of hatred and the encouragement of crimes committed on this basis have risen to the level of state policy, which the President of Azerbaijan has formulated as follows: “The main enemy of Azerbaijan is the entire Armenian nation.”

The manifestation of racism and intolerance in Azerbaijan is also confirmed by a number of international organizations, particularly reports from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe.

A glaring example of the encouragement of crimes committed on the basis of hatred by Azerbaijani authorities is the extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan in August 2012, followed by his glorification and national praise as a model of imitation. Meanwhile, Ramil Safarov was a criminal sentenced to life imprisonment by a Hungarian court for stabbing an Armenian officer participating in NATO’s “Partnership for Peace” training programs in Budapest while he was asleep.

The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance has unequivocally pointed out that such actions can instill a sense of impunity in individuals who have committed serious racist offenses, while the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has qualified this step by the Azerbaijani authorities as encouragement of racial hatred and crimes committed on the ground of hatred, as well as a refusal to provide legal protection to the victims.