State official emphasizes huge moral damage from Armenian aggression
By Rashid Shirinov
“Armenian military intervention in Azerbaijani territories: damage and casualties” international conference, commemorating the 25th anniversary of Khojaly genocide, was held in Baku on February 22.
President of Appraisal Company MBA, member of the Working Group on the Assessment of Damage Caused to the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan Nusrat Ibrahimov provided an insight into material and moral damage that Armenia caused to Azerbaijan as a result of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Deputy head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Novruz Mammadov, who is also the chief of the administration's foreign relations department, in turn, highlighted social and economic problems of the Azerbaijani people in the wake of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He also stressed the importance of the conference in terms of increasing the international community`s awareness of the crimes against the people of Azerbaijan.
“The policy pursued in the region over the past 200-300 years was directed against Azerbaijan, as Azerbaijani territories were occupied and our compatriots were expelled from their native lands,” Mammadov said.
He noted that as a result of the occupation of Azerbaijani lands and expulsion of 250,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia, more than one million people became refugees and internally displaced persons.
Mammadov stressed that the occupied territories of Azerbaijan comprise hundreds of thousands of hectares of fertile lands, and therefore, the country cannot use those lands to develop its economy.
“Mosques and cemeteries were destroyed in these territories. It is impossible to assess the moral damage,” Deputy head of the Presidential Administration stressed.
“The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan was violated and this is recognized by all international organizations and countries, but they take no action. Armenia could be sanctioned, but nobody thinks about it. They only pursue their own economic, political and geopolitical interests,” Novruz Mammadov said.
Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.
Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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