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Armenian MP Hayk Mamijanyan, head of the opposition Pativ Unem faction in the National Assembly, called for the immediate unblocking of the Lachin corridor, the sole road linking Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to Armenia, as he addressed Thursday’s session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). His full statement is below.

"Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dear colleagues,

I can see the looks on your faces. Armenians are going to speak about Azerbaijani aggression, POWs, Nagorno-Karabakh, conflict. And the Azerbaijani delegation will burden you with a flow of fake information.

But let me explain to you why we are obliged to speak up about the humanitarian catastrophe caused by the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor and other above mentioned topics.

Please consider my words not as a political speech, but as food for thought.

For instance, some of us today after the session will visit one of the restaurants here in Strasbourg. I'm asking you, while choosing your dinner, please keep in mind that 120 000 people in Nagorno-Karabakh have nothing to choose from but plain pasta or buckwheat. No vegetables, no fruit, nothing.

When you, honourable colleagues, reach your cosy and warm hotel rooms to hide from the cold wind and watch some news, please remember that 120 000 Armenians have no gas and electricity for six to eight hours a day.

For those of you who have children, please imagine. What would you do if someone in the world would hinder their education, if it was so cold in the classrooms that schools had to shut down for almost a month. If any of you has a headache after a long day, please, while swallowing a painkiller, remember that 120 000 Armenians in Artsakh are running out of meds.

When Mr Samad SEYIDOV tells that self-proclaimed activists are exercising their magnificent right of freedom of speech –though the sentence freedom of speech in Azerbaijan is an oxymoron– please remember that Azerbaijan is 104th in the environmental performance index by Yale University. And I don't recall any mass ecological protests in Azerbaijan. Though, a few moments ago we witnessed an Azerbaijani representative questioning French democracy.

Could you imagine that after 9 November 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in Europe there would be a place where families and relatives are forcefully divided.

In the 21st century, children are not able to meet their parents for more than one and a half months.

But make no mistakes. We can't wait 30 years. The Lachin corridor has to be unlocked now.

As the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention stated a few weeks ago, the world must act immediately to prevent a second Armenian genocide.

Thank you, and I call you to support the amendments presented by the Armenian delegation."