Difficult to Hold Serious Discussions at COP29 While Karabakh Ex-Leaders and Armenian POWs Remain Imprisoned in Azerbaijan: Afeyan

It is a terrible irony that Azerbaijan shall host the UN COP29 international climate conference this year at a time when this country is creating serious obstacles to civil society trying to solve the most important problems facing the world, starting from climate change to food security and human rights. Noubar Afeyan, Co-Founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and Moderna company, stated this during a roundtable discussion held by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, Carnegie Corporation, and The B Team in New York.

The roundtable discussion was dedicated to human rights and environmental issues prevailing in Azerbaijan and was being held ahead of the UN COP29 international climate conference scheduled for this year in Azerbaijan.

Afeyan reminded that a few days ago it was one year since 120,000 Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Armenians were forced to leave their homes after a 9-month siege by Azerbaijan, when his friend, former Minister of State of Artsakh Ruben Vardanyan, was illegally arrested by Azerbaijan and is still being held in Azerbaijani capital Baku prisons.

It will be difficult to hold a serious discussion on these issues when representatives of the public, civil society, and media may not be allowed to visit Baku to participate in this meeting, he said.

Noubar Afeyan noted that in addition to this, in May, Azerbaijan proposed that this year's UN COP29 international climate conference become a conference dedicated to peace, proposed that a ceasefire be established in Ukraine and the Middle East, which is particularly offensive considering that Azerbaijan could not to achieve peace after carrying out ethnic cleansing of the Armenians in Artsakh a year ago. According to him, this creates a hostile atmosphere in the region, for which Azerbaijan is responsible.

Afeyan mentioned that Azerbaijan is also illegally detaining the former leadership of Artsakh, Armenian prisoners of war (POWs), as well as Azerbaijani opposition members. In this context, it is difficult to imagine how one can talk about human rights and peace when Azerbaijan resorts to such actions at the same time, he said.

According to him, climate change is one of the most important issues, but if the aforesaid UN conference dedicated to this issue shall take place at the expense of violating human rights and not establishing peace, then the conference will not succeed in achieving its goals.

Noubar Afeyan added that as the first step, the government of Azerbaijan needs to release the more than 300 political prisoners, including Ruben Vardanyan, who are currently in prisons.