Risk of collective compromise by UN and democracies if choice of  Azerbaijan as host country of COP29

ArmInfo.In an op-ed in "Le Monde", former minister Bernard Kouchner underlines the risk of  collective compromise by the UN and democracies if the choice of Azerbaijan as the host country of COP29.

 While France is more than ever immersed in political uncertainty, we must not lose sight of the  major international deadlines at a time when ecology should be the  priority of our leaders. The choice of Azerbaijan as host of the next  United Nations Climate Conference (COP29) is there to remind us of  this at the same time as it confronts the international community  with its own contradictions.

How can it justify holding such a crucial event in a country which  deviates from international law, depends massively on hydrocarbons  and flouts human rights by detaining without valid reason  twenty-three Armenian hostages who are dying in its jails ? A year  has not passed since the ethnic cleansing of the 120,000 Armenians of  Nagorno-Karabakh that Azerbaijan has already been awarded the hosting  of an event as prestigious as COP29. This choice raises questions  both on a humanitarian and ecological level.

The United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) seems to act  as if the events of recent months had not taken place and thus gives  a blank check to Azerbaijan to continue violating international law.  After imposing a blockade of more than nine months on the entire  Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, depriving 120,000 Armenians of food,  medicine and fuel, Azerbaijan launched a military offensive on  September 19 to take full control of the territory carrying out a  real ethnic cleansing.

For the first time in more than two millennia, no Armenians now live  in this region of the world. When leaving the Republic of  Nagorno-Karabakh, Ruben Vardanian, philanthropist nominated for the  Nobel Peace Prize, as well as seven other Armenian political leaders  were taken hostage by the Azeri authorities alongside around ten  civilians.

Their arbitrary detention is all the more worrying since no foreign  observer or media is authorized to be present at the ongoing trials,  nor to provide information on their state of health. For almost nine  months, calls for the release of these hostages have gone unheeded.  However, and it is essential to repeat, the fight against climate  change cannot be dissociated from respect for human rights, the  author writes.