Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Gerry Sutcliffe, one of the UK parliament members from Labor Party has said that the IDP's return home should be given precedence.

"We have now reached the 20th anniversary of the occupation of Agdam, Fizuli, Jabrail and Zangilan. It is clear that little progress has been made in resolving this conflict," Sutcliffe said in response to a survey from the European Azerbaijan Society on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

In order to witness withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijan territories in the near future, Sutcliffe noted that more effort should be made to reach a solution in line with international law on territorial integrity and UN Security Council resolutions.

"There are one million displaced Azerbaijanis. I myself have met and seen them on my visit to the country. The return of these people to their homes should be a priority for the international community," Sutcliffe said.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been embroiled in a conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other surrounding regions. A rather unstable and temporary ceasefire has been in place from 1994, but long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have largely been fruitless so far.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on pullout of its forces from the neighboring country's territories.