Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Head of the Azerbaijani mission to the United Nations expressed concern by the actions undertaken by Armenia with a view to relocating the Syrian citizens of Armenian origin in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, official website of the mission reported.

Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the United Nations Agshin Mehdiyev said that Syrian crisis has diverse impact, and its consequences are being experienced in other regions and countries as well.

"Thus, we continue receiving the reports testifying to purposeful attempts aimed at encouraging some categories of Syrian citizens to move to other conflict-affected areas, and even to settle in the territories under foreign military occupation, from which their original population was earlier forced to leave," Mehdiyev said.

According to him, needless to say that such actions constitute a clear violation of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

"Of course, I have in mind the actions undertaken by Armenia with a view to relocating the Syrian citizens of Armenian origin in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan," Mehdiyev said. "Indeed, while the international community is focused on searching for ways out of the Syrian crisis, the suffering facing the people of that country are being utilized to further complicate the situation and peace efforts in another region."

He said no doubt, attempts to address the needs of refugees from Syria at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani displaced persons, living with the hope of returning to their homes, are illegal and cannot be tolerated nor accepted under any circumstances.

Mehdiyev also added that Azerbaijan from the very beginning has shared the view of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and other partners on the need for a greater policy attention to the humanitarian situation in Syria, particularly with a view to ensuring respect for international humanitarian law and access by humanitarian actors to those in need of assistance in Syria.

According to the Armenian government, more than 7,000 Syrian Armenians have already expressed the desire to relocate to Armenia, Eastbook.eu portal reported in August.

Armenian government started constructing apartment buildings for Syrian refugees in May of this year, the same source said.

Azerbaijan has repeatedly expressed serious concerns over the resettlement of Syrian Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenian armed forces.

Earlier, deputy foreign minister Araz Azimov said that Azerbaijan is not opposed to the placement of Syrian Armenians in other areas, but is totally against the accommodation of Armenian refugees from Syria being resettled in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azimov said he felt that quite different reasons are underlying the choice to resettle the Syrian refugees in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against 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. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far. Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.