AN AZERI AUTONOMY IN ARMENIA?
By Gayane Movsessian
Yerkir.am
April 07, 2006
The spring session of PACE will be held in Strasbourg on April 10-13. A
report titled “Refugees and Displaced Persons in Azerbaijan, Armenia
and Georgia” prepared by the Committee on Migration, Refugees and
Population will be discussed during the session. The report has been
prepared by Boris Sileviks (Latvia, socialist faction).
The information presented in the report has caused a shock in
Baku. According to the report, 235 thousand refugees from Azerbaijan
live in Armenia. 15 thousand people were granted Armenian citizenship
in 2001 and 16 thousand in 2002. The refugees that are granted
citizenship lose their refugee status.
In Azerbaijan, the report states, there are 560 thousand internally
displaced persons from the territories adjacent to Nagorno Karabagh
and only 8606 refugees. 8500 of them are Chechens, over 100 refugees
are from Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Azeri refugees from Armenia
that have received Azeri citizenship are no longer considered refugees.
Baku insists that the number of refugees from Armenia is 250
thousand. Azerbaijan is concerned that the refugees that were granted
Azeri citizenship have lost their right to return to their previous
place of residence which is Armenia. Currently Baku is exploring
the possibilities of depriving these people of their citizenship and
restoring their refugee status.
“From the legal and judicial perspective, these 250 thousand people
should not be considered citizens of Azerbaijan. The Azeri constitution
allows the president to grant citizenship to individuals that request
citizenship. However, there have been no such applications.
Citizenship was granted to refugees from Armenia with no previous
application procedures. This means that procedural violations occurred
when granting citizenship,” the Azeri representative to PACE Gyultekin
Hajiyeva stated.
She proposes to deprive the former refugees from Azeri citizenship
and grant them legal residence status. Hajiyeva believes the
Azeri government has to do its best to settle this issue as soon
as possible. “I have discussed the issue with relevant agencies
in Azerbaijan.
They supported my position and I hope the issue will be settled
soon. In any case, it is in Azerbaijan’s interests.” Commenting on
the situation with refugees, member of the international relations
committee of the Azeri parliament Sabir Rustamkhanli noted, “Hundreds
of thousands of refugees were granted Azeri citizenship in 1998
so that they could participate in the elections. This was in the
interests of some forces.”
It looks that today Azerbaijan no longer needs the votes of the
refugees from Armenia. It should be noted that in 2005 the leader
of the refugees, ex-minister of healthcare Ali Issanov was arrested
in Azerbaijan for “attempts of seizing power and forming military
groups”. The Azeri leaders’ statements sound as if they were speaking
about some sheep and not human beings.
Baku is increasingly concerned that the refugees will not want
to return to Armenia, which our ambitious neighbors call “Western
Azerbaijan”. An association has been established in Azerbaijan called
“return to Western Azerbaijan” that includes Azeri refugees from
Armenia.
The leader of the association Rizvan Talibov calls on the Azeri
refugees to return to Armenia and demand autonomy that would be
similar to the autonomy that the Armenians in Nagorno Karabagh will
have. Judging from the statements made by Azeri political leaders
this idea was not authored by Talibov. As they say, there is no smoke
without fire.