Armenian community in Rīga holds picket in protest against war

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The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which erupted last weekend with new force, also worries local Armenian and Azerbaijani communities. The Latvian Armenian cultural center held a picket September 29 in Bastejkalns, calling for an immediate cessation of the conflict.

On Tuesday, September 29, around a hundred Armenian community representatives and their friends gathered in Bastejkalns to walk slowly to the Azerbaijani embassy. 

“All the Armenians who have come here want no warfare. We want the 21st century not to have a situation that is now in the world - it is not normal. We stand here peacefully and demand that it be completed more quickly,” Nora Kosjana said.

“We are here to call all parties involved to an immediate cessation of hostilities, to an end to violence. We express such confidence that humanitarian values will prevail and people will come to their senses and stop killing each other's children,” Narine Abagjana-Šica said.

The community of Azerbaijanis in Latvia is also following developments in Nagorno-Karabakh with the same unwavering interest. Amils Salimovs, who heads the diaspora youth society, said that the two communities live here in a friendly way.

“Of course, here both they and we are minorities. We are not disturbing each other, we have nothing to fight for here, unfortunately there is an unresolved problem,” Salimovs said.

Amils said: “It can only be solved when the occupied territory is be returned to the Azerbaijani. This is the only way that all of this can be solved. For 30 years, Azerbaijan has been trying to somehow negotiate the return of their occupied territories, but so far it has yet to succeed.”

Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics (“New Unity”) also called for an immediate cessation of warfare on Monday. 

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