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UN HCR praises government’s care for refugees and IDPs

13 March 2014 13:57 (UTC+04:00)
UN HCR praises government’s care for refugees and IDPs

By Jamila Babayeva

Azerbaijan's Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of State Committee on Deals of Refugees and IDPs met with UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UN HCR) Representative in Azerbaijan on March 12.

Ali Hasanov and Dag Sigurdsson praised the activity of the UN HCR in Azerbaijan, and noted that cooperation between the organization and Azerbaijan continues successfully, a fact that is confirmed by Azerbaijan's membership in the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner.

The two sides also noted that a lot of works were carried out and substantial funds were allocated to solving the problems of more than one million refugees and IDPs, who were driven out from their homeland as a result of Armenian's aggression against Azerbaijan.

The meeting also focused on the projects implemented at the initiative of the UN HCR Representative in Azerbaijan with the support of the Azerbaijani government, future plans, Azerbaijani government's support for international humanitarian organizations, and other issues.

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. More than one million of Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDPs as a result of the Armenian aggression.

The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.

Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France, the U.S., and the OSCE Minsk Group are underway on the basis of a peaceful outline -called Madrid Principle -proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs. Negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.

Resolving the problems of refugees and IDPs have been the focus of the government's attention since the early days of occupation.

The State Program on improving the living conditions of refugees and IDPs and their employment opportunities approved by a Presidential Decree in 2004 and the Annexes approved by Presidential Decrees in 2007 and 2011 were successfully implemented in 2013.

New settlements were built for IDPs in 2001-2003 by the first funds allocated by the State Oil Fund, which enabled the government to demolish five IDP camps in the Beylagan region in 2003 and provide 1,330 refugee and 5,081 IDP families with new houses.

The State Oil Fund and other sources allocated 1.6 million manats (about $2 million) to building 82 modern settlements with all social and technical infrastructures in 2001-2013.

The amount of the funds allocated for the refugees and IDPs has increased during the recent years; 368 million manats (about $470 million) has been allocated to improving the living conditions of refugees and IDPs; 300 million manats (about $382 million) from the State Oil Fund and 68 million manats (about $87 million) from the budget and investment expenditures was allocated in 2013, which is 18 times more than in 2003.

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