Baku protests against settling Syrian Armenians in occupied Azerbaijani lands
By Aynur Karimova
Baku has urged the International Organization for Migration to put an end to Yerevan's policy of settling Syrian Armenians in occupied Azerbaijani territories.
Azerbaijan's Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov slammed the Armenian policy at a meeting with Director General of the IOM William Lacy Swing on September 3
He said that settlement in the occupied territories and attempts to deliberately change the demographic composition are prohibited by international humanitarian law.
The foreign minister informed the director general about the presence of more than one million Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons expelled from their native lands as a result of the Armenian aggression.
"The return of these people to their native lands is now the subject of negotiations within the framework of the conflict settlement process," the minister noted.
Syrian Armenians who are suffering from poverty and unemployment are leaving their homeland where one third of the population is living in poverty. While abandoning their motherland, Syria, for Armenia, the Syrian refugees of Armenian descent thought they would find a peaceful temporary place to live.
Unfortunately, Armenia is engulfed in lots of problems and cannot shelter these refugees, as authorities are unable to provide neither them nor ordinary citizens with a normal life.
The Armenian authorities have settled some Syrian refugees in occupied Azerbaijani territories, and thus, committed an international crime, since the settlement of the refugees in disputed territories is not acceptable.
Azerbaijan has repeatedly warned that the settlement of refugees in occupied territories is a very dangerous process with unpredictable consequences.
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, causing a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian, and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.
As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing, almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were reported disabled.
The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions requiring Armenia’s withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.
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Aynur Karimova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Aynur_Karimova
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