Every single one of you has the obligation to prevent the genocide and the large-scale war

THE MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL PRESS CLUB,

NARINE MKRTCHYAN, TO THE UN SECURITY COUNCIL

Honourable members of the UN Security Council,

I am Narine Mkrtchyan, the President of the National Press Club, a citizen of a small country called Republic of Armenia 9107 km away from New York, and a child of the ancient Armenian nation.

I appeal to all of you together, as a highly reputable institution with a mandate, right and obligation to ensure international peace and security.

I appeal to you one by one, as members of the Security Council, who have an obligation to keep this institution viable and functional.

I appeal to you from Yerevan, but this distance that separates us cannot silence the strong alarming beats of my heart that are palpitating for Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) on this Independence Day of Armenia.

I appeal to you, hoping that you cannot allow that another genocide be committed against the Armenian people, who have already endured genocide. You cannot allow that the Armenian population of Artsakh, with their unbreakable desire to live in their own land, be exiled from their own land with medieval violence, with weapons, war threats, starvation and blockade, emptying their homeland of the Armenian population. The Armenian nation has gone through all this already in the 20th century, when the world was doing nothing more than feeling pain during the first genocide of the 20th century.

Today’s genocides are born from yesterday’s impunity, from universal indifference, from the attitude that tragedies happening in this or that end of the world are not their own.

Honourable members of the UN Security Council,

Every single one of you has the obligation to prevent the genocide and the large-scale war.

Azerbaijan is an aggressor country that continues its military attacks on the sovereign territory of Armenia. The President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, is committing a crime against humanity, subjecting a whole nation to genocide. Things must be called what they are: Azerbaijan must be recognised as an aggressor country and strict sanctions must be imposed on it.

I appeal to you as the Member States of the UN Security Council,

Do not throw the cloak of indifference over yourself. Put aside your geopolitical interests and disagreements and prevent the war and the genocide in Artsakh. New wars are going to result in more and more new victims, in new threats, and on our war-burdened planet the ground will burn under our feet and yours.

In 1915, during the days of the Armenian Genocide, French writer Anatole France was shouting: “Our sister is dying in the East.” Your sister is dying in the East. Heed the appeal of Anatole France.

And remember the warning of the Polish writer Bogdan Gembarsky: “The final victim of any genocide is justice.” Do not allow that justice and the nation believing in justice are sacrificed to the Azerbaijani aggression. Each nation has an Anatole France and a Bogdan Gembarsky in them: heed their voice.

Narine Mkrtchyan

Citizen of Armenia, President of the National Press Club

21 September 2023

Yerevan