AZERIS WHO LEFT ARMENIA NOT REFUGEES

PanARMENIAN.Net
13.01.2010 20:01 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The Azeris who left Armenia in late 1980s cannot
be viewed as refugees as they do not meet refugee criteria under
international law, political scientist, YSU Professor Alexander
Manasyan finds.

"We cannot put an equal sign between the Armenians deported from
Azerbaijan and the Azeris who left Armenia in peaceful conditions.

It’s unacceptable," he told a news conference in Yerevan.

At that, he noted that over 200 Armenian deportees have not so far
received material or moral compensation.

"It is necessary to elaborate a package of legal documents on
compensating Azerbaijani Armenians, with RA Government sparing no
effort to assist in the process," he stressed.

Twenty years ago today the Azerbaijani authorities perpetrated the
Armenian pogroms of Baku. Some 400 Armenians were killed and 200
thousand were exiled in the period of January 13-19. The exact number
of those killed was never determined, as no investigation was carried
out into the crimes.

On January 13, 1990 a crowd numbering 50 thousand people divided into
groups and started "cleaning" the city of Armenians. On January 17,
the European Parliament called on EU Council of Foreign Ministers
and European Council to protect Armenians and render assistance to
Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. On January 18, a group of U.S. Senators
sent a letter to Mikhail Gorbachev to express concerns over the
violence against the Armenian population in Azerbaijan and called
for unification of Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.