Azerbaijan has launched a new offensive against Armenia to retake Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory between the two countries. But this time it is not a military attack, but a legal one. Baku accuses Yerevan of destroying the environment of the Armenian-dominated enclave and therefore intends to initiate interstate arbitration under the Council of Europe’s Bern Convention on the protection of Europe’s wildlife and natural habitats. Both countries have signed binding international agreements with the EU and 50 other states, but the agreement has never been used to arbitrate ecological issues between the two countries and this will be the first case.
“Over the past two years, we have uncovered shocking evidence of environmental damage on lands liberated in the 2020 war,” Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov told Politico. “There has been and continues to be the exploitation of natural resources and industrial pollution that still harms our ecosystem today”. According to Mammadov, more than 500 species are at risk in Nagorno-Karabakh, including leopards, grizzly bears, grizzly wolves and eagles. A spokesperson for the Council of Europe told the newspaper that no official request has been received so far. In any case, according to the contract text, a standing committee of all contracting parties “must do its best to facilitate an amicable settlement”. If this does not happen, a formal arbitration process can be initiated: three arbitrators will be appointed and an arbitral tribunal set up. However, it is difficult to know the outcome of any procedure or what kind of compensation can be claimed.
The legal attack appears to be just a continuation of the military attack. Last August, the Azerbaijani army recaptured control of the city of Lachin and the nearby villages of Zabukh and Sus, effectively cutting the corridor connecting Armenia to the Armenian-inhabited lands and declaring its independence from Azerbaijan since 1992, making itself part of Azerbaijan. . The Artsakh Republic is a state not recognized by any UN country. The Lachin region of Azerbaijan, where the corridor is located, has been under the control of Armenian troops since the first Nagorno-Karabakh war in 1994, which resulted in the victory of Yerevan.
During the second conflict in 2020, which is estimated to have killed more than 6,500 people, Baku regained control of the region and six other districts around the Highlands, with the support of longtime ally Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Karabakh and part of the separatist enclave. According to the agreement on the cessation of hostilities, supported by Vladimir Putin’s Russia and guaranteed within three years, the parties were supposed to build an alternative land communication route between Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh, but Azerbaijan violated the pact and demanded that the Armenians leave Lachin.
Since mid-December, Azeris, who say they are environmentalists and claim to protest illegal mining, have closed the corridor and as a result, the separatist enclave with a population of around 120,000 is now facing problems with power and internet cuts. heating and access to food and medicines. There is also Italy, given that President Ilham Aliyev, who has been in power since 2003 after taking the reins of government from his father, imported more than 13% of the boat’s gas from the former Soviet country and the nation left to support Azerbaijan’s moves. , together with Iraq, is our largest supplier of crude oil, with an average of approximately 5.5 billion euros over the last decade. Gas flows, especially from the Asian country, reach the Southern Corridor in Italy from Puglia via the Trans Adriatic pipeline, Tap. The capacity of the faucet is currently about 10 billion cubic meters per year. In the future, the government plans to gradually increase it, doubling it to 20 billion cubic meters by 2027.
Italy has been Azerbaijan’s leading trade partner in the world for several years, with our imports increasing from 2.9 billion euros in 2016 to about 5 billion by the end of 2019, with exports and a value of approximately 300 million euros. Nearly 7 billion orders that Italian companies have won in the last 15 years. Following the announcements of Eni’s agreements in Algeria and Libya in the presence of Giorgia Meloni, the government plans to consolidate the role of Azeris in our energy plans. Minister of Enterprise and Made in Italy, Adolfo Urso, visited Baku yesterday to attend the ceremony for laying the foundation stone of the Mingachevir plant, where Ansaldo Energia will install four gas turbines, the first of which is 320 MW each, for a total of 160 million euros. a series of projects that will interest Italian companies in the sector.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
