BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 9. A peaceful protest was held in front of the UN office in Vienna against the Armenian environmental terrorism in Azerbaijan's territory, the State Committee on Work with Diaspora told Trend.
According to the Committee, protesters of the action, jointly organized by the Academic community in Azerbaijan and the Austria-Azerbaijan Association of Culture and Entrepreneurs (AZER-DER), rallied against the illegal exploitation of Azerbaijan's mineral resources in the temporary deployment area of Russian peacekeepers.
Participants showed posters with the demands "We protest against the plunder of Azerbaijan's natural resources!", "End Armenian ecocide!", "Stop environmental terrorism in the territory of Azerbaijan!". With this step, diaspora activists expressed solidarity with Azerbaijani environmental activists, civil society representatives, and volunteers protesting on the Lachin-Khankendi road.
The protesters also underscored that Azerbaijanis living abroad wouldn't turn a blind eye to the Armenian plundering of natural resources of Azerbaijan and that the ecological terrorism committed in Karabakh has already become a global problem.
The activists told local residents about the 30-year-long occupation of Azerbaijani lands, the plundering of the country's mineral resources, the water pollution in rivers and lakes, as well as about the demolition of about 60,000 hectares of forest land. The international community should support the sovereign right of Azerbaijan to protect its natural resources and the country's efforts to deal with the consequences of the second Karabakh war and conduct large-scale construction work. The protesters urged the international community to stop the eco-terrorism of Armenia in the Azerbaijani territories.
The protest on the Lachin-Khankendi road against the illicit exploitation of Azerbaijan's mineral resources in the area of Russian peacekeepers' temporary deployment has been going on for the twenty-ninth day.
Earlier, the Armenian media spread more fake news that the Azerbaijanis allegedly blocked the Lachin-Khankendi road and didn’t let the supply vehicles through.
Previously, following the talks with the Russian peacekeepers' command on December 3 and 7, 2022, a group of experts from the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Property Service under the Ministry of Economy, and AzerGold CJSC were going to begin preliminary monitoring of the illicit mineral resource exploitation, as well as emerging environmental implications on Azerbaijani lands, where the Russian peacekeepers are temporarily deployed, on December 10, 2022.
The expert team was expected to inspect the environmental condition at the 'Gizilbulagh' gold deposit and the 'Damirli' copper-molybdenum deposit, monitor various areas, organize cadastral property records, assess potential risks and threats to the environment, as well as to underground and surface water sources.
However, when arriving in the monitoring area, the expert group, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, faced provocations. The planned initial inspection and monitoring did not take place due to the fact that the Russian peacekeepers not only did not create necessary conditions and prevented for the entire process to carry on.
