Diplomat calls for more sensitivity towards Azerbaijan
By Sara Rajabova
The Azerbaijani ambassador to the United Kingdom called on to show sensitivity towards Azerbaijan, which is suffering Armenian aggression for over two decades.
Tahir Taghizadeh expressed concern over the wrong description of Azerbaijan's occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region in a biased article "Valuable partner in energy ambitions" (Turkey and the World, FT Special Report, September 21) posted on Financial Times.
He raised his concern about the mentioning of Nagorno-Karabakh as a "disputed enclave".
"I am very well aware how seriously the Financial Times takes the territorial integrity of states in light of the recent developments in our region and not only there. Therefore, I would like to see the same sensitivity to be shown in all cases, including Azerbaijan," Taghizadeh underlined.
He stressed that it is of utmost importance that things are called by their names.
"Nagorno-Karabakh is an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan that is currently under the military occupation of Armenian armed forces together with seven adjacent regions," Taghizadeh said.
Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s.
"What exists in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding occupied territories is an unrecognized separatist regime and should be called as such," the ambassador said.
He went on note that to call it a "disputed enclave" plays into the hands of the separatist regime which strives to gain international legitimacy.
Taghizadeh said it has been set up in violation of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and forced the eviction of hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azerbaijanis amounting to ethnic cleansing.
The bloody war, which flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, left more than one million civilians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the regions adjoining it, as well as the regions bordering with Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh without homes.
They are temporarily settled in more than 1,600 settlements across 62 cities and regions of Azerbaijan. Moreover, 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from Armenia and became refugees due to Armenia's ethnic cleansing policy after the emergence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijanis who had displaced from their homes as result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents and wagons in very difficult conditions.
Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. However, the negotiations have been largely fruitless so far despite the efforts of the co-chair countries over 20 years.
The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.