Azerbaijan to deliver report on refugees to UN
By Mushvig Mehdiyev
Azerbaijan will submit a report on the situation of the Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons to the United Nations.
Tural Rzayev, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Kuwait, said the report would be developed based on the outcomes of the visit of Abdullah al Matouq, Envoy of the UN Secretary-General on Humanitarian Issues and Head of the International Islamic Charity Foundation of Kuwait, to Azerbaijan in the near future.
Abdullah al-Matouq is expected to meet with the Azerbaijani officials in an effort to discuss the provision of a humanitarian aid to the Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs.
Armenian aggression against Azerbaijani dating back to the early 1990s has turned over a million of ethnic Azerbaijanis into refugees and IDPs in their homeland.
The Azerbaijani government attaches particular attention to help them and improve their living conditions. The last refugee tent camp in the country was liquidated in December, 2007.
The Azerbaijani authorities have allocated over $6.5 billion so far to resolve the social problems facing the refugees and IDPs, according to the State Committee for Affairs of Refugees and IDPs.
More than $2.6 billon has been spent to improve the living condition of the victims of Armenian occupation, and the State Oil Fund contributed to the overall sum with nearly $2.3 billion.
Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million were displaced as a result of the war.
Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions. Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. have produced no results so far.
Kuwait supports Azerbaijan's position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as the official representatives of the country has repeatedly expressed the full backing to the country.
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