OSCE experts complete mission in breakaway Karabakh – Azeri official

Turan news agency
8 Feb 05

Baku, 8 February: The OSCE mission looking into facts of Armenia’s
settling the occupied Azerbaijani territories has completed the first
part of its work, Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov
has told journalists while commenting on the mission’s journey to
the occupied territories.

On the next stage the mission is expected to analyse the collected
material and prepare a report. “We expect this to be done in the near
future, and the prepared report will then be submitted to a meeting
of the OSCE Minsk Group and then to the OSCE Permanent Council,”
Azimov said.

He expressed his confidence that the facts provided to the mission
by the Azerbaijani side had been confirmed. Namely, the mission
received material from open and other sources about Armenia’s settling
20,000-23,000 people in the occupied territories. But even if the
mission discovers half or a third of this figure, this will confirm
the fact of illegal settlement anyway, Azimov said.

He went on to say that under the 1949 Geneva Convention the occupier
has no right to settle and change the demographic situation in the
captured territories. He also described as illegitimate Armenia’s
argument that the areas are being settled by the Armenians who were
deported from Baku, Ganca and Sumqayit. He stressed that international
humanitarian law unequivocally bans settlement of anyone who did not
live in the occupied territories before, regardless of their origin.

[Passage omitted: minor details]
From: Baghdasarian