French MP: Time has come for return of Azerbaijanis to their lands
By Rashid Shirinov
Conditions should be created for the return of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani IDPs back to their homes, said Jean-Francois Mancel, a member of the French Parliament and president of the Association of Friends of Azerbaijan in France.
Mancel made the remark in his statement issued in connection with the visit of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to France.
The statement reads that Armenia occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territories back in 1990s. The UN condemned the occupation of Azerbaijani lands four times. Currently, over one million Azerbaijanis live a refugee life.
"The worst thing is that on February 26, 1992, Armenia committed a genocide in Khojaly, and massacred 613 civilians including women and children," he said, noting that this fact was recognized by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan in 2000.
“At first, the Azerbaijanis thought that we were joking and will not attack the civilian population. We were able to break this stereotype," Sargsyan said then in an interview.
Mancel went on to say that although members of the Armenian Diaspora in France are trying to show the occupiers as "those who were exposed to occupation," and torturers as "innocent victims," they will not be able to hide the truth.
"On what grounds, the country that gave the right of vote to women in 1918 and abolished the death penalty in 1998 is criticized?" Mancel asks in his statement.
The French senator further called for the creation of conditions for the return of Azerbaijani IDPs back to their homes and stopping the bloodshed.
He added that France can contribute to the establishment of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, thanks to its support to the presidents of both countries and its role entrusted to it by the international community.
France along with Russia and the U.S. is one of the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker a peace to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.
Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.
Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. have produced no results so far.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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