By Benoit Lannoo*
ANTWERP (Belgium) | 02 September 2025 (IDN) — For two years, at least twenty-three Artsakhis are jailed in Baku. Their crime: wanting to be what they are, namely Artsakhis. And what does the European Union do? Nothing!
Today, it is Independence Day in Artsakh.
But there is nothing to celebrate, since the self-declared autonomous republic in Nagorno-Karabakh has been reduced to virtual existence on September 19, 2023, when the Azeris, breaking the ceasefire agreement of November 10, 2020, attacked Artsakh’s capital Stepanakert, and the population of Artsakh, exhausted after a blockade of nine months, massively fled their homeland.
I can understand that nearly nobody then supported – of today supports – Artsakh’s independence.
At the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was agreed in Alma-Ata on December 21, 1991, to accept the independence of the former Soviet Republics, but not of the several – sometimes autonomous – oblasts within their borders. Recognising independence of Artsakh would open Pandora’s box, with consequences for among others Georgia (Abhkazia, South Ossetia), Moldova (Transnistria) and Ukraine (Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk).
Self-determination is a right.
Independence may not be the solution, but self-determination of peoples nonetheless has been acknowledged by international law.
In the United Nations (UN) Charter, respect for the right to self-determination of peoples has been mentioned as one of the purposes of the United Nations (Chapter 1,2). This right has been confirmed by the UN General Assembly in the Declaration of Friendly Relations, which has been unanimously adopted in 1970 and is considered an authoritative indication of customary international law. Article 1, common to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), reaffirms the right of all peoples to self-determination, and lays upon state parties the obligation to promote and to respect it.
The only crime committed by the at least twenty-three ethnic Armenians remaining in detention in Baku by the government of Azerbaijan, is their commitment to the right to self-determination for the Armenian people, who have lived in Artsakh for more than 17 centuries.
Two millennia of Armenian history
The Amaras Monastery for example is the burial place of St. Gregory the Illuminator’s grandson, St. Grigoris, who died in in 338 AD. At the beginning of the fifth century, Mesrop Mashtots, the inventor of the Armenian alphabet, established in Amaras the first school in Artsakh that used his script.
But Azerbaijan, occupying the region now, denies the monastery’s Armenian Apostolic heritage, instead falsely referring to it as “Caucasian Albanian”.
How to prevent Baku from cleansing the region from its Armenian inhabitants and from its Armenian cultural and religious heritage, without self-determination for the Artsakhis?
The events of September 19, 2023 clearly have demonstrated that several resolutions of the European Parliament do not been make any impression on the Azerbaijani President, Mr. Ilham Aliyev.
Europe in-action
In a resolution of October 5, 2023, the European Parliament again was demanding “that Azerbaijan ensure the safety and security of the people in Nagorno-Karabakh, respecting the UN Charter and all relevant international conventions, the principles of international humanitarian law and human rights, its international commitments and the Organisation of Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) principles”, and was calling “the Azerbaijani authorities to allow the safe return of the Armenian population to Nagorno-Karabakh, to offer solid guarantees regarding the protection of their rights and to refrain from any inflammatory rhetoric that could incite discrimination against Armenians”. It was also reminding “the Azerbaijani authorities that the right to return to one’s home is a fundamental precept of international human rights law”, and “calling on the Azerbaijani authorities to urgently and genuinely engage in a comprehensive and transparent dialogue with the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to ensure respect for their rights and guarantee their security, including their right to live in their homes in dignity and safety, and their land and property rights, to maintain their distinct identity and fully enjoy their civic, cultural, social and religious rights”. It was calling “on the Azerbaijani authorities to closely consult the Council of Europe, the UN, the OSCE and other international organisations concerning best practices to guarantee the rights of ethnic Armenians, stressing that this is particularly important given Azerbaijan’s disastrous track record on human rights”.
Those are many words to dissimulate an execrable lack of action from the European Union in this matter.
On the contrary, when Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, went to Baku on July 18, 2022, to double the supply of gas from Azerbaijan to the European Union, she even did not mention Azerbaijan’s unlawful blockade that put the people of Artsakh in dire straits at that very moment. She instead praised Mr. Aliyev for having “always been reliable”.
Washington Agreement
Meanwhile, the European institutions also have welcomed the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the Azerbaijani President Aliyev in Washington on August 8, 2025.
“The EU fully supports the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process and has been working for years with both parties and our international partners to create the conditions for lasting peace. We continue to stand ready to work with partners towards full-fledged normalisation, providing additional support and expertise, including for the practical implementation of next steps.”
But no word anymore about the Artsakhi people, their right to return to their homeland, the protection of their cultural and religious heritage or the release of the political prisoners in Baku.
The European Parliament on August 13 also warmly welcomed the Washington Agreement, only noting in a last sentence of its statement “the need to resolve the outstanding issues of Armenian prisoners in Azerbaijan and displaced Karabakh Armenians”.
At the speed the words the European Union is willing to spend on the Artsakh issue are vanishing, there will be none anymore on September 19 to come, when the second anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh is on the agenda.
Two days ago, Ms. Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission, announced the appointment of Ms. Marijana Kunjundžić as EU ambassador to Azerbaijan. Will she be allowed only to mention the problem in Baku?
When the former Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, now European Commissioner, Ms. Hadja Lahbib, urged by my articles in Belgian press, in August 2022 announced here willingness to bring up the Artsakh issue on her trip to Baku, Mr. Aliyev immediately responded that he was refusing to see her.
Donald Trump
Is the American President, Mr. Donald Trump, who brokered the Washington Agreement of August 8, a more reliable partner for justice in the Caucasus?
In the margin of the internationally widely covered meeting at the Oval Office, Mr. Pashinyan has mentioned “23 Christian prisoners”, and the American President has answered that he personally would ask Mr. Aliyev to liberate them, “and he will do it”.
We are still waiting; former Artsakh State Minister, Mr. Ruben Vardanyan; three former Artsakh Presidents, Mr. Arayik Harutyunyan, Mr. Bako Sahakyan, and Mr. Arkadi Ghukasyan, and many others are still waiting… in an Azerbaijani prison cell.
Meanwhile, Mr. Trump has shown his expertise in the matter by praising himself for the peace agreement he enforced to “Albania and Aber-baijan”.
Minsk Group
I am very prudent with argumenta ad hitlerum, but I cannot omit to mention the words of Adolf Hitler spoken on August 22, 1939, a week before his invasion of Poland that started the Second World War: “Wer redet heute noch von der Vernichtung der Armenier? – Who today is still mentioning the genocide of the Armenians?”
Who is defending the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh anymore? The Western world – the self-declared defenders of human rights, international law, and justice – is indeed not doing it anymore.
Adding insult to injury, the day before the Artsakh Independence Day, the OSCE Ministerial Council’s decided to formally dissolve the OSCE Minsk structure, depriving the ethnically cleansed Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh from the only internationally mandated mediation format for the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the protection of their rights.
Although the successes of the OSCE Minsk Group are none and the basis for this decision to get rid of the Minsk Group is a ‘joint appeal’ by Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Washington Memorandum, this decision legitimizes the use of force and abandons the foundational principles of international law.
It represents a serious blow to the right of self-determination of the people of Artskah, the right to return to their ancestral homeland, the protection of the cultural and religious heritage in Artsakh, and a failure factor in serious lingering issues such as the occupation of sovereign Armenian territory by Azerbaijan, the sham trials of Armenian prisoners in Baku, genocidal war crimes against the Armenian population of Artsakh and the persistent militant Armenophobic rhetoric daily employed by Azerbaijan.
[IDN-InDepthNews]
(Benoit Lannoo is a Belgian Expert in Oriental Churches & International Policies. He is travelling regularly to Armenia and has also been travelling to Artsakh before the ethnic cleansing of the region in September 2023.)