“Following Azerbaijan’s military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh last year – in which more than 200 people were reported to have been killed with up to 120,000 ethnic Armenians forced to flee – several of the region’s political leaders and at least 23 prisoners of war have been held in detention in Azerbaijan. We request that the Government use the opportunity of COP29 to continue to apply all due pressure on the Government of Azerbaijan for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, hostages and prisoners of war”, said the text. “We would also like to know what consideration has been given to pressing for a British delegation to visit them in the interim period, until their release can be secured?”, added the letter.

“With allegations of the destruction of much-cherished sites and buildings of religious and cultural significance in the region, we would also urge you to push strongly on ensuring they will be protected”, said the letter of the APPG.

“We would like to draw your attention to the aforementioned joint motion for a resolution recently adopted by the European Parliament on 23 October, which called for, ‘…Azerbaijani authorities to allow the safe return of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, to genuinely engage in a comprehensive and transparent dialogue with them, to provide robust guarantees for the protection of their rights, including their land and property rights…'”.

“These COP29 partners, which include a conglomerate owned by the president’s daughters, will benefit from exposure to an international audience, access to a special exhibition zone, and sponsorship opportunities”, said OCCRP.

“It is very easy for corrupt regimes to make sure their family and friends can use the COP to green- and whitewash their records and directly benefit from the COP,” said Brice Böhmer, who leads Transparency International’s work on climate change and governance.

“I am not going to Azerbaijan to COP. It is extreme hypocrisy of the UNFCCC to let yet and another authoritarian petrol state and regime host the COP both for the people in Azerbaijan that the regime are repressing and the Armenians who the Azerbaijan regime is guilty of ethnic cleansing”, said Thunberg.

Soltanov is also the deputy energy minister of Azerbaijan and is on the board of Socar. A representative of the human rights organisation, Global Witness, approached the COP29 team posing as the head of a fictitious Hong Kong investment firm specialising in energy.

“In an apparent conflict of interest, acknowledging his two hats as COP29 CEO and Azerbaijan’s deputy energy minister, Soltanov offers to help facilitate discussions about investment in the country’s oil and gas sector”, explained Global Witness.

“The ‘Cop of peace’ is one theme chosen for this year’s climate conference by the host, which wants to encourage states to observe a “Cop truce”. It is gut-wrenching, to say the least, to talk of global peace after the terrible human rights violations committed by Azerbaijan’s Aliyev regime against ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh region. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is planning to greenwash its crimes against Armenians by building a ‘Green Energy Zone’ on territories where the population has been ethnically cleansed”.

“We need immediate sanctions targeted against the regime and a halt to the import of Azerbaijani fossil fuels. Diplomatic pressure must also be put on the regime to release its Armenian hostages and all political prisoners – and ensure the right to a safe return for Armenians”.

“This year’s UN climate summit should be about genuine efforts to save our planet. It is beyond reason that it should be hosted in Baku, where officials have an appalling human rights record, and whose wealth depends on oil and gas. We remember with horror Baku’s ethnic cleansing of Nagorno Karabakh and the continuing illegal detention of Armenian hostages. There can be no impunity for these most serious international crimes. We must speak out against such blatant greenwashing”, HART stated.

Last week, the organisation announced the reopening of The Lady Cox Rehabilitation Centre in Armenia to support people with disabilities. After 25 years of operation in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), the center was forced to close in September 2023 due to the ethnic cleansing committed by Azerbaijan.

“Newly-released UN data shows that no fewer than 12 advisers from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, where Blair is an unpaid executive chairman, are listed as members of Azerbaijan’s national delegation to the climate conference in Baku as part of a paid contract with the hosts”, informed the OCCRP.

“In a letter to the UN, senior figures say countries should not host the talks if they don’t support the phase out of fossil energy. This week the Azerbaijani president told world leaders gathered in his country for COP29 that natural gas was a ‘gift from God’ and he shouldn’t be blamed for bringing it to market. That came days after the BBC reported that a senior Azerbaijani official appeared to have used his role at COP to arrange a meeting to discuss potential fossil fuel deals”.

“The group, which includes former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and the former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, said future conferences should only be held in countries that can show clear support for climate action. It comes after this year’s Azerbaijani hosts declared at the summit’s opening in Baku that the country’s oil and gas were ‘a gift from God'”.

“The choice of Azerbaijan to host the talks has also come under criticism over its human rights record, with failings including the persecution of political opponents and detainment of activists”.

“Global leaders are currently meeting in Azerbaijan to discuss solutions to a warming planet. But rights organisations have called for a review of how countries are selected to host the climate summit after what they say is a worrying increase in the number of environmental prisoners of conscience in Azerbaijan”.

“But the brutal ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh last year and President Ilham Aliyev’s long-standing denial of the Armenian genocide proved too much even for a UN climate conference where white-washing and hypocrisy are the order of the day”.

“CCS lobbyists at Cop29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, outnumber the core national delegations from powerful nations including the US and Canada. Nearly half of the lobbyists were granted access as members of national delegations, affording them greater access to negotiations, including 55 who were invited as ‘guests’ by the Azerbaijani government, which is hosting this year’s climate summit, and given what some at the conference are calling ‘red-carpet treatment'”.

The guests were welcomed by Lusine Abrahamyan, the deputy director of the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute.

Abrahamyan referred to the three khachkars placed in the memory of the Armenians who died in the massacres organized by the Azerbaijani government in the cities of Sumgait, Kirovabad (Gandzak) and Baku in the last century, as well as the stories of the five freedom fighters buried in front of Hushapat during the Artsakh struggle, emphasizing the connection between what happened and the Armenian Genocide.

Abrahamyan then showed the guests the graves of a number of foreign public figures, politicians, intellectuals and missionaries who raised their voice of protest against the mass massacres of Armenians and genocide carried out by the Turkish government in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The guests heard with great interest about Lord James Bryce’s pro-Armenian activities.

The media representatives honored the memory of the innocent victims of the Armenian Genocide with a minute of silence near the eternal fire.

“My Lords, in welcoming the presence of the Prime Minister in Baku, does the noble Baroness recall that in 2023, 120,000 Armenians were driven out of Nagorno-Karabakh in ethnic cleansing when Azerbaijan cut off electricity, medicine and food? During this conference, even on the margins of the conference, did the Prime Minister have the opportunity to raise with President Aliyev the continuing failure to create a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia and the return of prisoners?”, asked Lord Alton.

“The UK has been consistent in seeking a peaceful resolution of this and we do take every opportunity we can to move that forward”, was the official answer of Baroness Chapman of Darlington, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State.