YEREVAN, March 17. /ARKA/. Armenian President Armen Sarkissian met today with human rights defender Arman Tatoyan to discuss the work done for repatriation of Armenian POW held in Azerbaijan and the search for the missing, Sarkissian’s press service reported.
It said the human rights defender presented to the president his concept of creating a demilitarized security zone in the southern province of Syunik to guarantees the rights of its residents. Tatoyan emphasized that the process of border determination is being carried out amid an open threat of war from Azerbaijan and its state policy of Armenophobia.
According to Tatoyan, Azerbaijani servicemen are firing in the immediate vicinity of the Armenian villages of Syunik threatening its residents’ rights and their physical safety.
He said the presence of the Azerbaijani military, Azerbaijani-language signs and flags on the roads between the settlements of Syunik are of serious concern and anxiety. There are also gross violations of property rights.
Sarkissian was said to have stressed that there are no official processes of demarcation and delimitation of borders between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which means that the process of determining state borders at the moment is at least legally indefinite.
After the leaders of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities in Artsakh on November 9, more than 190 settlements in Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent seven districts were placed under the control of Azerbaijan.
As a result, the borders of the Syunik region in the south of Armenia (including the administrative center Kapan) appeared to be in close proximity to the new borders of Azerbaijan, drawn during the Soviet time.