Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in Azerbaijan on the persecution of the Armenian population in Nagorno Karabakh.

I [Minister for Europe] spoke to Azerbaijani FM Bayramov on 17 September and met the Azerbaijani Ambassador on 9 November. In both of these engagements, I highlighted the need for all outstanding matters between Armenia and Azerbaijan to be settled by peaceful negotiation. Following the recent closure of the Lachin Corridor, the UK's Representative at the UNSC reinforced these messages. If the UK Government sees clear evidence of persecution of any ethnic group in the region, we will raise our concerns directly with the state in question, and in appropriate multilateral fora.