Dispute breaks out between Azerbaijani and Armenian representatives at OSCE event

A dispute broke out between the delegation of the Western Azerbaijan Community (WAC) and the Armenian delegation at the OSCE event themed "The Role of Civil Society in the Promotion and Protection of International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law."

Report learned that at the beginning of the meeting, an employee of the Embassy of Armenia in Austria tried to prevent the participation of Kamal Jafarov, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament and the deputy chairman of the Youth Council of the WAC, in the event as a representative of the community.

Later, the diplomat voiced the letter of protest, which he claimed to have come from the official Yerevan, but since the provocation failed, he left the meeting hall.

In his reply, Jafarov stated that the Western Azerbaijan Community has no territorial claim:

"Our organization is a non-governmental organization, and you know very well that an NGO by its very nature cannot have a territorial claim to any state. These baseless claims of the Armenian delegation are another example of their authoritarian arrogance."

The representative of the community emphasized that Armenians have deported Azerbaijanis from their homes for centuries: "They carried out ethnic cleansing against us. Now they want to hush us up here. This will never happen. We will always express the truth and tell the facts."