Wife of Armenian PM calls on Azerbaijani women to fight together for peace

Anna Hakobyan, the wife of Armenia’s Prime Minister, has called on Azerbaijani women to join her Women for Peace initiative.

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Hakobyan’s visit to the US

Hakobyan recently traveled to the United States where she spoke with US congressmen and Carnegie Foundation experts about her Women for Peace initiative.

“As a woman and a mother, I believe that the most valuable thing in the world is human life. Many young people are killed in the conflict,” Hakobyan said in a statement.

“The goal of our initiative is to prevent these deaths.”

Anna Hakobyan stated that, in order to achieve this goal, it is necessary to unite the women of Armenia and Azerbaijan:

“If women unite and say ‘Do not kill our children!’ and ‘Let’s try our strength at the negotiating table’ then their voices will be heard.”

Hakobyan believes that the “voice” of the revolution went beyond the borders of Armenia and reached other countries, including Azerbaijan.

Response from the OSCE acting chair

“The initiative of the wife of the Prime Minister of Armenia is supported by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office,” reports the Armenian service of Voice of America.

Stanislav Laichak said that the women of the two countries can play an important role in resolving the Karabakh conflict:

“We wholeheartedly believe in the importance of the participation of women and youth in peace processes. Women are giving new impetus to the conflict resolution process, and we support their involvement in peacemaking.”

Details about the initiative

Anna Hakobyan first announced her Women for Peace initiative in July 2018. She presented her idea at a meeting with other women who were Russian leaders and invited them to join her campaign. Women supporting the initiative include a female Duma member, the leader of the Women’s Dialogue party in Russia, and a number of other important female figures in NGOs and the media.

In an exclusive interview with JAMnews, Anna Hakobyan spoke about her campaign and the involvement of women from different countries in the process:

“This is a very specific message – you can’t even call it peacemaking. The bottom line is until the Karabakh conflict is resolved, until a settlement option is found that will be acceptable to all parties, we must find a way to avoid unnecessary casualties. Karabakh is a difficult matter, and we all understand that the solution to it may take many years. If it were actually possible to solve the issue by military means, by killing several young people a year at the border, then by now we would have already achieved some kind of result – we would already attained that goal.”

Women who joined the Women for Peace initiative in 2018 visited Nagorno-Karabakh, where they called on women to join them in their mission.

They intended to make the same appeal on the Azerbaijani border. However, after a trip to Karabakh, they found themselves on the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s blacklist due to visiting Nagorno-Karabakh from the Armenian side.

As their entry to Azerbaijan has been prohibited, they will not have the opportunity to make the same peace appeal in Azerbaijan.