Great Britain calls to provide Azerbaijani refugees' right to return to their home
By Mushvig Mehdiyev
Azerbaijan is one of the countries with the largest group of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP), according to the foreign ministry of Great Britain.
"The refugees and IDP of the South Caucasus: Numbers Game" report of the GB foreign ministry say the right of the Azerbaijani refugees and IDP to return to their lands should be provided under any regulation.
The report analyses the seismic population shifts that have taken place in Azerbaijan and Georgia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the economic impact of this. It also speaks of the “enormous suffering and hardship” on those affected.
These people are the ongoing victims of the Armenian–Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the report says.
“The right of refugees and IDPs to return to their homes is central to Baku’s vision for restoring their territorial integrity – and in principle, this is supported by the international community as a necessary element of any long-term settlement,” the report says.
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 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced, while 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled as a result of the large-scale hostilities that ended with the signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994.
Long-standing efforts by U.S., Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.
The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced yet.