“Unfortunately, the consequences of the war unleashed against the right of the people of Artsakh [the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh] to self-determination and the right to life have not yet been completely overcome,” acting Foreign Minister Armen Grigorian said on Monday during a joint press conference in Yerevan with visiting Uruguayan Foreign Minister Francisco Bustillo.
“Armenia and Artsakh are facing security problems, Armenian prisoners of war and captured civilians have not been repatriated yet. In this case, we continue to rely on the solidarity of our friendly countries, and of course, on Uruguay,” Grigorian added.
The top Armenian diplomat also said that Yerevan “greatly appreciates Uruguay’s principled position regarding the Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression against Artsakh in the fall of 2020.”
“Among other things, the country’s legislature condemned the involvement of mercenaries by Turkey in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, cases of human rights violations by Azerbaijan, and the shelling of civilian infrastructure,” Grigorian said. “All this confirms that although Armenia and Uruguay are geographically distant, the ever-strengthening shared values and mindset between Armenians and Uruguayans allows us to overcome the thousands of kilometers that separate us.”
Uruguay has a vibrant community of ethnic Armenians many of whom found refuge in this South American country after fleeing 1915 massacres in Ottoman Turkey.
In 1965, Uruguay became the first nation in the world to officially recognize the Ottoman-era mass killings and deportations of 1.5 million Armenian as genocide.
In his remarks in Yerevan Uruguay’s Foreign Minister Bustillo also reminded that Montevideo had expressed its concern to the international community over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, pointing out that conflicts should be resolved without the use of force.
Bustillo also said that highly assessing its relations with Armenia over the past 30 years, Uruguay has decided to open an embassy in Yerevan.
So far, Uruguay has been represented in Armenia by a consulate-general.