UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Damascus: Iraqi Armenians do not settle in Azerbaijan's occupied territories

The Azerbaijani Embassy in Syria sent a request to the Iraqi embassy in Damascus to clarify the information that the Iraqi Armenians living in Syria, settle in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.

According to the Iraqi embassy in Damascus, the number of Iraqi Armenians who have been registered by the Syrian representation of the EU Commission for Refugees reached 1,223 people on March 31, 2010.

The report by the Iraqi embassy also says that people who fled from Iraq during the war settled mainly in Western and Central Europe and North America. But the report does not confirm information about the settlement of Iraqi Armenians in Armenia and occupied Azerbaijani lands.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994.

The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied territories.


/Trend/