Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The EU-CELAC summit discussed global peace and security. Did the issue of the crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh come up? What is the Government's position on that? Ethnic cleansing is happening before our eyes while the authoritarian Aliyev regime remains an EU ally. Von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, flew to Baku last year to sign an agreement to double the supply of gas from Azerbaijan to the EU, yet Aliyev was threatening as long ago as October 2020 to ethnically cleanse Armenians from the region proclaiming, "that if they do not leave our lands of their own free will, we will chase them away like dogs". Armenians understandably fear that this could escalate into a second genocide. More than a third of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, 42,500 people, have fled following Azerbaijan's offensive last week and a ten-month blockade that caused severe shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

What is the EU or the Government doing to help the people of Nagorno-Karabakh? Will the Government advocate for the EU, including Ireland, to grant refuge to Armenians fleeing the war, as it has done for the people of Ukraine?

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