Azerbaijan raises issue of Armenian settlement with UN

Space TV, Baku
18 Mar 05

[Presenter] The OSCE Standing Committee in Vienna has heard out a
report by an OSCE mission which has looked into reports of Armenian
settlement in Nagornyy Karabakh and other occupied territories of
Azerbaijan.

Yuriy Merzlyakov, Russian co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, who
presented the report, said the Armenian government has no special
programme of settlement and is not helping anyone settle in the
occupied territories. The report says that there is no large-scale or
organized settlement in the districts that are under Armenian control.

Here are the figures presented by the mission on the number of
Armenians who have settled in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories:

1. Kalbacar District – nearly 1,500 people,

2. Agdam District – 800-1,000 people,

3. Fuzuli District – 10 people,

4. Cabrayil District – at least 100 people,

5. Zangilan District – 700-1,000,

6. Qubadli District – 1,000-1,500 people.

As for Lacin District, the factfinding mission says less than 8,000
Armenians have settled in this district.

[Passage omitted: Armenians ask for the same kind of inspection in
former Armenian settlements which are under Azerbaijani control]

The report by the OSCE factfinding mission has confirmed the illegal
settlement of Armenians in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories. The
issue of evicting the illegal Armenian settlers from the Azerbaijani
districts has been raised with the UN, Deputy Foreign Minister Araz
Azimov has said.

[Azimov] It is the first report of this kind. This document is very
rich in facts, which have yet to be assessed. According to our
calculations, about 20,000-23,000 people have settled in the occupied
territories. The mission has put this number at 15,000-16,000. They
are not quite sure about these figures either.