Armenia has asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take measures to protect the rights of ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh to ensure Azerbaijan does not "ethnically cleanse" the breakaway region after Baku launched a lightning offensive last month that triggered most residents to flee the area.
The hearing started at The Hague-based United Nations court on October 12 with statements from both sides.
Armenia has been demanding that Azerbaijan refrain from "punitive actions against current or former Nagorno-Karabakh leaders or military personnel."
“Nothing other than targeted and unequivocal provisional measures protecting the rights of ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will suffice to prevent the ethnic cleansing Azerbaijan is perpetrating from continuing and becoming irreversible,” Yeghishe Kirakosyan, the lead counsel for Armenia's legal team, told the court.
Baku and Yerevan were locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades. Armenian-backed separatists seized the mainly ethnic Armenian-populated region from Azerbaijan during a war in the early 1990s that killed some 30,000 people.
Diplomatic efforts to settle the conflict brought little progress and the two sides fought another war in 2020 that lasted six weeks before a Russian-brokered cease-fire, resulting in Armenia losing control over parts of the region and seven adjacent districts.
With its September lightning offensive, Azerbaijan effectively regained control of the rest of Nagorno-Karabakh. More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians -- virtually the entire population -- have fled to Armenia.
Azerbaijan's legal team was to present its case later in the day on October 12, but the Foreign Ministry has previously said the departure of ethnic Armenians was “their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation.”
A court ruling is expected in the case in a few weeks. Judgments of the court are binding.