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As the world descends on Baku, Azerbaijan, for the United Nation’s COP29 climate conference, a troubling reality is emerging. The UN—an organization that is infamous for its hypocrisy—is actively helping distract from a brutal campaign of genocide against Christians. In 2023, over 120,000 Armenian Christians were driven from their ancestral homeland in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) by Muslim Azerbaijan, in what amounts to a coordinated effort to erase a people and their faith. And yet, the UN is hosting one of its most high-profile conferences in Baku, giving cover to Azerbaijan's atrocities.
For years, Azerbaijan has engaged in a campaign to wipe out the Armenian population in Artsakh, a small, historic region in the South Caucasus that has been a center of Christian life for centuries. After a bloody war in 2020, Azerbaijan seized much of the region, but that wasn’t enough. Baku proceeded to launch a nine-month-long blockade and subsequent lightning offense, which starved and drove out one of the oldest Christian communities in the world. Following the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh’s population, Azerbaijan proceed to level churches, sandblast ancient Christian inscriptions, and desecrate cemeteries.
All of these actions point to a concerted effort to destroy and eliminate any evidence of an ancient Christian population. For Armenians, this is nothing new. As the first and oldest Christian nation in the world, it has endured centuries of persecution. From 1894-1924, the Ottoman Empire slaughtered 1.5 million Armenian Christians in what is now known as the Armenian Genocide.
Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has publicly stated that Azerbaijan’s actions meet the legal definition of genocide. This comes at a time when the global persecution of Christians is at its highest point in history. Yet, instead of reprimanding Azerbaijan, the UN is rewarding Baku with the honor of hosting COP29.
Unsurprisingly, just days after the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh was complete, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev made a large donation to the UN Human Settlements Program. The UN’s corresponding silence on the genocide was deafening.
After selecting Azerbaijan as the host nation, President Ilhan Aliyev publicly announced that Artsakh would be designated a “green energy zone” with a focus on wind, solar, and hydropower projects. The clever PR stunt serves Baku’s purposes on two fronts. First, it distracts from the fact that Azerbaijan is one of the worst polluters in the world. And second, it diverts attention away from its egregious human rights record. Even now, dozens of Armenian Christians languish in the dungeons of Baku with little to no contact with the outside world.
Greenwashing is a well-worn strategy in the Azeri playbook. Baku justified its nine-month blockade of Artsakh by claiming that it was concerned by the environmental impact of Armenian mining operations. The claim is outrageous, given Azerbaijan’s well-documented history of excessive pollution. Of course, the subsequent military offensive against the region laid Baku’s true intentions bare.
The United Nation’s decision to host COP29 in Baku is shameful. If the UN truly cared about human rights, or if it had any genuine concern for Christian communities under siege, it would have selected an alternative country. There are dozens of other nations with better track records on both climate and human rights that could host the event. Instead, the UN is staying the course, proving once again that its priorities are completely out of touch with people of faith.
As the world watches COP29 unfold, it must not forget the 120,000 civilians who were forcibly driven from their homes in Artsakh and the Christians who are being tortured in Azeri prisons. Up to this point, the U.S. Government has refused to publicly condemn the conference. More than likely, the task of holding the Aliyev regime accountable will fall on men and women of faith. The United States must continue to expose the UN for what it is—an organization that will gladly sacrifice Christians at the altar of power.
