MELKUMYAN: IN KARABAKH SETTLEMENT WE MUST RAISE ISSUE ON RETURN OF ARMENIAN REFUGEES TO AZERBAIJAN

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jul 30 2009, 23:00

Grant Melkumyan, leader of the Communist Party of Nagorno-Karabakh,
finds it illogical that in debates on Karabakh settlement they talk
about Azerbaijani refugees, while there are more than half-million
refugees-Armenians from Azerbaijan. In his opinion, it is also
necessary to raise the issue about a similar return of Armenian
refugees to Azerbaijan and Shaumyan and Martuni Districts of Karabakh.

He states that equivalency should be observed in any debate. In his
opinion, only after deciding on the status and a complex of social
issues, it will be possible to prepare the parties’ societies to
mutual concessions in return of refugees, the "Caucasian Knot"
correspondent reports.

"This is a complex issue that can be settled only after the
international recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR),"
said the leader of Karabakh communists. "Those people who recognize
the republic’s constitution can come back here. As to the issue
of material and moral compensation to refugees, Azerbaijan, as the
aggressor, shall bear responsibility for indemnifying all the refugees,
irrespective of nationality."

Grant Melkumyan has emphasized that Armenians had been deported from
Soviet Azerbaijan by the efforts of Azerbaijan authorities. "It was
a real ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijanis left their homes because of
the war unleashed by Azerbaijan," he has added.