Nagorno-Karabakh: UN General Assembly To Discuss Occupation Of Azerbaijani Land
By Robert McMahon

Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic
Nov 23 2004

Azerbaijan is hoping a proposed UN General Assembly resolution on its
occupied territory will help resolve a key impediment to peace talks
with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. The resolution, to be discussed
today (eds: 1600 Prague time), calls for reaffirming Azerbaijan’s
territorial integrity and seeks an investigation into Azerbaijani
claims Armenia is promoting a settlement policy in the occupied
lands. Armenia denies this and has said such a resolution could
undermine the peace process.

United Nations, 23 November 2004 (RFE/RL) – The UN General Assembly
was expected to open discussion today on a resolution seeking to
address Azerbaijan’s concerns about its occupied territories and
sluggish peace process with Armenia.

The resolution calls for a reaffirmation of Azerbaijan’s sovereignty
and territorial integrity 10 years after ethnic Armenian forces won
control over Nagorno-Karabakh and occupied several districts adjacent
to the enclave.

It expresses “alarm and grave concern” at the situation in the area
occupied by Armenian forces, alleging the violation of international
humanitarian laws. The measure also raises concern about reports of
Armenian settlers being transferred to the territories.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told reporters
yesterday that the persistence of such reports, from international
and Armenian sources, was a main factor driving the initiative in
the assembly. The resolution invites the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which is directing peace talks,
to send a fact-finding mission to lands occupied by ethnic Armenian
forces to report on the situation.

“We get greatly concerned that the Armenian government is conducting
a settlers’ policy in the occupied territories, which we consider
as a pure violation of international humanitarian law, including the
Geneva conventions of 1949,” Mammadyarov said.

Diplomats at Armenia’s UN mission did not respond to repeated requests
for comment yesterday. When the issue was placed on the assembly’s
agenda in October, Armenian officials said there were no settlements
in the territories outside the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh and denied
there was any policy to settle those lands.

Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian recently warned that
Azerbaijan’s initiative in the assembly threatened to undermine
mediation efforts under the OSCE’s Minsk Group. A French diplomat
speaking on behalf of the group told the General Assembly in October
that the group did not believe UN was the proper forum to discuss
the matter.

Mammadyarov said yesterday that his government remained committed to
the Minsk process but was looking to spur progress on issues related
to its large number of displaced persons. The resolution, though
nonbinding, would seek to expand international pressure for a solution.

“We do not agree that [the resolution] can create bad consequences
for the peace process,” Mammadyarov said. “We consider that even it
will support the peace process because otherwise you cannot conduct
sincere peace negotiations, and simultaneously behind the scenes [the]
Armenian side [is] conducting negotiations providing the so-called
settlement process.”

The initiative follows strong comments by Azerbaijani President Ilham
Aliyev at the General Assembly debate in September. Aliyev faulted
the UN for neglecting the situation in and around Nagorno-Karabakh,
citing UN Security Council resolutions in 1993 that called for the
withdrawal of ethnic Armenian forces from Azerbaijani territory.

Mammadyarov said he also wants to see countries in the Minsk Group,
especially the United States, become more active in pressing for a
negotiated solution to the conflict.

“The conflict is very, very difficult. Of course, the settlement of
the conflict is not very easy,” Mammadyarov said. “What we’re calling
[for] is that it should be solved only by the efforts of [the whole]
international community.”

The war over Nagorno-Karabakh has driven an estimated 800,000
Azerbaijanis from their homes, about a tenth of the country’s
population. Azerbaijan’s internally displaced people cannot return to
Armenian-occupied territories, and many have been living in wretched
conditions for the past 10 years.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress