Ara Babloyan’s open letter to Ilham Aliyev

29 September 23

Open Letter to Ilham Aliyev

I allow myself to address this open letter considering many circumstances: I, as a pediatric surgeon, have operated on and saved the lives of thousands of children, among them hundreds of Azerbaijani children, when we were all citizens of the same country. As the Minister of Health of the RA, I did everything possible to prevent the outbreak of measles in our region, including Azerbaijan, offering the necessary batch of the measles vaccine to the Azerbaijani Minister of Health. As the President of the National Assembly of the RA, I made a statement that it is unacceptable to me that young people aged 18-20, both from the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides, are dying simply because we cannot resolve issues through peaceful political means.

With this letter, I want to remind you of your promise and emphasize that you should adhere to it both as the president of the country and as a man.

You set a condition before the Armenians of the Nagorno Karabakh, to lay down their weapons and dissolve state structures, promising amnesty for all in return. This was enthusiastically welcomed by the leaders of a number of leading countries in the world. And now, when people have laid down their weapons, thereby preventing many new casualties on both sides, and the president of Nagorno Karabakh has announced the cessation of the existence of the state, with almost 100.000 Armenians leaving Nagorno Karabakh and all that land will pass to Azerbaijan, you, unfortunately, have not yet declared amnesty. 

I hope that my letter will awaken dignity in you, and as a president who made a promise, you will declare amnesty right now, without any preconditions, rather than later, after new arrests, detentions and humiliations.
 

Ara Babloyan, 

Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor

29.09.2023

Yerevan, Armenia