Lawmakers from Azerbaijan, who are in Yerevan to attend the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, were met by protesters who gathered at the Karen Demirjian Complex on Tuesday to voice their anger about Azerbaijan’s continued aggression against Armenia and Artsakh.

Yerevan is hosting this year’s EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly, whose participants include members of the European Parliament, as well as the legislatures of countries in the Eastern Partnership program, which includes Azerbaijan.

Hundreds of people came out to protest Azerbaijan’s and Turkey’s ongoing aggression against Armenia and Artsakh, highlighting what they called Azerbaijan’s cultural genocide in Artsakh territories currently being occupied, reported Yerkir Media.

“The genocide continues. We, Armenians, have been exiled from our homeland. The world stood silently as Artsakh was taken away. The world was silent as our sons were killed. They [the world] stood by and watched the Turks do what they did,” said Igor Sargsyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Supreme Council of Armenia.

One of the two Azerbaijani lawmakers visiting Yerevan, Tair Mirkishili, was among members of the EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly leadership that met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday.

In addressing the EuroNest assembly on Tuesday, Mirkishili repeated Baku’s assertions that the Karabakh conflict ended with the war in 2020.

“Since the conflict is over, Azerbaijan has expressed readiness for a demarcation and delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border,” he told the assembly as reported by Azatutyun.am. “I am glad to note that we have received a number of positive signals from Armenia in this regard.”

Pashinyan’s meeting that included Mirkishili has also angered several factions of the Artsakh parliaments. The three opposition blocs there—the ARF, Justice and the Artsakh Democratic parties—issued an announcement on Tuesday denouncing the visit by the Azerbaijani delegation.

“What distressing for us is the reality that there in no information on whether during the meeting [with Azerbaijani lawmaker] issues related to the Artsakh and other concerns that are shared by a large segment of the public were discussed—security concerns, the return of Armenian prisoners of war, destruction of cultural monuments in the occupied territories and the ongoing increase of human rights violations,” said the parliamentary groups in their announcement, reported the Stepanakert-based Aparaj newspaper.

The groups urged that through the Armenia-Artsakh inter-parliamentary working group, the legislatures of both countries immediately resume cooperation on matters of regional security, the necessary response to anti-Armenian policies of Turkey and Azerbaijan, the return of Armenian POWs and many other critical issues.

“Given the ongoing developments in the region, we call of the speakers of the Artsakh and Armenia National Assemblies to immediately organize an emergency session of the inter-parliamentary commission,” the announcement said.

“Security challenges in our region continue to remain acute while Azerbaijan thinks that conflicts can be solved by war. Nearly two years ago Azerbaijan decided they could put an end to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict by using force, which in itself is a direct violation of the fundamental principle enshrined in the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act,” said Armenian lawmaker Anna Grigoryan during the EuroNest assembly on Tuesday.

“How can we talk about security, when on a daily basis threats of use of force, belligerent rhetoric, propaganda and xenophobia continue to be heard from Azerbaijan? Furthermore, while we are holding our session, Azerbaijani military continues the occupation of the sovereign Armenian territories in Syunik. Given the aggressive policy led by Azerbaijan it becomes difficult to think about a security environment in our region, but the deep silence and indifference of Europe makes it even more challenging,” Grigoryan added.

“If the war unleashed against Nagorno Karabakh unleashed by Azerbaijan and fully supported by Turkey was not the red line to put sanctions against war criminal Ilham Aliyev and his regime, if detaining and torturing of our prisoners of war is not the red line, I have to ask you: do we stand for a political dialogue or aggression? Do we support political dialogue or policy of cohesion? If we do chose political dialogue and security, and not terrorism, aggression or xenophobia, then the EU has to make an unequivocal targeted political assessments of Azerbaijan and Turkey. Double standards, selective approaches and hypocrisy should be rejected if we honestly want to reach security in our region,” she stated.