Today, Azerbaijan
March 24 2006
“Refugees and Displaced Persons in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia”
on PACE spring session agenda
24 March 2006 [14:27] – Today.Az
Declaration on “Refugees and Displaced Persons in Azerbaijan, Armenia
and Georgia” was included into Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE) spring preliminary session agenda. Project of the
given document was prepared by the Latvian reporter of the Committee
on Migration, Refugees and Population, Boriss Cilevics.
As Trend informs, the document, referred by number 10 835, states in
particular; “The situation of refugees and displaced persons in
Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia continues to be an obstacle for the
development of these countries in economic, socio-political and
health terms.”
Efforts to find a solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict have not
as yet produced results. Border incidents still occur, the fate of
missing persons has yet to be solved and landmines continue to cause
injury and death. There remain urgent humanitarian needs which are
becoming ever more difficult to satisfy as donor fatigue sets in.
Urgent humanitarian needs, however, must be increasingly supplemented
by international development aid to provide a future for the refugees
and internally displaced persons in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.
There are, however, some positive signs that the three countries are
moving forward with the local integration of their refugees and
displaced persons, thus allowing these people to regain their dignity
and prepare for the future.
“It is difficult to gauge the number of refugees and displaced
persons in the region. By law or by virtue of administrative
practice, the three countries tend to recognize the descendants of
persons displaced in various capacities within the region as
“refugees” or “displaced persons”, with the result that the total
number of refugees and displaced persons never seems to decrease.”
The majority of refugees and displaced persons are in that situation
because of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and deportations between
Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Without a settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the objective
of enabling refugees and displaced persons to return to the regions
from which they came is impossible to achieve. Furthermore, the
progress of the dialogue designed to solve the practical problems
refugees and displaced persons face, particularly with regard to the
return of their identity documents and the official restitution of
their property, is not satisfactory.
The Assembly welcomes the fact that the three countries have now
embarked on programs for the local integration of their refugees and
displaced persons. Article 13 of the resolution project, indicates
that “In Azerbaijan three categories of people need to be
distinguished: displaced persons who had to flee Karabakh, displaced
persons from the districts of the Republic of Azerbaijan that are,
strictly speaking, occupied, and Azerbaijanis from Armenia, who are
refugees under international humanitarian law.”
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