On May 31-June 1, in Berlin, the delegation, headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Ashot Hovakimian, participated in the OSCE Wide Counter Terrorism Conference Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism and Radicalization, held within the framework of Germany's OSCE Chairmanship. A number of high ranking officials from the OSCE participating and partner states attended the event. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Germany's Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Thomas de Maizière, Germany's Federal Minister of the Interior, delivered opening remarks.

In his remarks, Deputy FM Hovakimian stressed that Armenia has been the first country in the framework of OSCE to condemn mass atrocities perpetrated by ISIL and Al Nusra against Yazidis in Iraq and Armenians in Kessab and Deir Zor in Syria. In his words, it is necessary to focus on the prevention of hate crimes since they directly link violent extremism to terrorism.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hovakimian mentioned that the existing conflicts may create conducive environment for violent extremism particularly when state authorities use conflicts to suppress human rights both within and beyond their jurisdiction and propagate hatred against the other parties to the conflict. Deputy Foreign Minister emphasized that, unfortunately, recent events in our region came to prove the validity of our concerns, when the Azerbaijani Armed Forces replicated ISIL and Ramil Safarov style executions in more massive scale by beheading, mutilating not only the military but civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh, including women and elderly persons. The perpetrators of those hideous crimes have not been brought to justice and instead were awarded by the President of Azerbaijan.

Concluding his remarks, Deputy Foreign Minister Hovakimian stressed that any attempt to use violent extremism and terrorism as a mean to achieve its objectives by states should be unequivocally condemned.