Azernews.Az

TBILISI – A row over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict emerged at a Wednesday conference on promoting peace in conflict zones held by a UN organization in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

As the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) conference opened, the Armenia-occupied Nagorno Karabakh region of Azerbaijan was presented in its agenda as a party to the long-standing conflict, which drew fire from the chair of the Azeri-Turkish Women’s Union Tenzile Rustamkhanly, the Baku-based group told AssA-Irada. Rustamkhanly reminded of the UN Security Council resolutions on an unconditional pullout of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, labeling the distortion as a move "misleading the international community and realizing the Armenians’ wishes regarding Karabakh".

After Rustamkhanly’s strongly worded response, the agenda of the conference was altered to remove Nagorno Karabakh from the entities cited as parties to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

But more tension followed after UN official Damira Sartbaeva in remarks at the conference termed the Azerbaijani rebel region as "an unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh Republic". After Belgian Senator Dominique Tilmans and Georgian Parliament Vice Speaker Rusudan Kervalishvili stepped in, Sartbaeva had to apologize to the Azerbaijani people for the distortion.

Nagorno Karabakh has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a war that killed an estimated 30,000 people and ousted up to one million Azerbaijanis from their homes. Years of OSCE-brokered peace talks have brought few tangible results.