Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The U.S. Azeris Network (USAN) has launched a campaign of awareness in the American society about the occupation of the Azerbaijani Zangilan region by the Armenian armed forces on July 23, 1993.

During this campaign, the members of the Azerbaijani diaspora sent letters to the US legislators, government officials, and US media outlets.

The letter noted the occupation of the regions in the lower and mountainous parts of Karabakh during the war, the massacre of the peaceful Azerbaijani people of Khojaly, Shusha and Kalbajar, and offered statistical information about the occupied regions, people who were killed, and the damage inflicted to Azerbaijan as a result of Armenian aggressions.

It said that Zangilan region was one of the most ancient places of Azerbaijan, holding strategic importance because of its location along the Baku-Nakhchivan-Julfa railway.

Before the occupation, 35,000 people were living in Zangilan region, which covers an area of 707 sq. km.

As a result of the occupation of the central region and 83 villages, hundreds of people crossing the Aras River in an attempt to escape the Armenian troops were killed and drowned.

The authors of the letter stressed that Yerevan is completely indifferent to the four UN Security Council resolutions urging an immediate withdrawal of Armenian armed forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, as well as the UN General Assembly resolution calling for an immediate and unconditional pullout of all the occupied territories.

The USAN campaign participants urged the US government to be proactive in exerting pressure on Armenia to take a constructive stance, and force it to comply with the UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, thus withdrawing its forces from the internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories and allowing the return of Azerbaijani refugees, displaced during the war, to their home.

Armenia's territorial claims in the late 1980s and the ensuing military aggression resulted in the occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh, and also seven surrounding regions. More than a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDPs in the aftermath of the ensuing war between the two South Caucasus republics.

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

Russia, France and the U.S. have long been working to broker a solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the OSCE Minsk Group, but their efforts have been largely fruitless so far.