Azerbaijan urges UN High Commissioner to pay more attention to large-scale violations of Azerbaijani refugees' rights

Baku. 15 September. REPORT.AZ/ Such differentiated approach of the High Commissioner ignores the existence of numerous UN documents on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, which is absolutely unacceptable.

Report informs, the statement of Azerbaijan's Permanent representative to the UN office and other international organizations, read out during the 33th session of the UN Council on Human Rights in Geneva says.

"Azerbaijan has always highlighted on numerous occasions the necessity of the significant efforts to address the flagrantly violated human rights situation of more than 1 million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs who have been ethnically cleansed by the Armenian regime from their historical lands in Armenia followed by the military occupation by this country of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territories.

The international community has already expressed its unequivocal position on the large scale human rights violations of more than 1 million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs through the UN Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, in which the UN Secretary General and the UN Secretariat were tasked to deal with the overall situation of refugees and IDPs in Azerbaijan", the statement reads.

"In this regard, Azerbaijan regrets long term silence of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the large scale human rights violations of Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs for more than 20 years. There are numerous evidences and facts collected, inter alia, during the visits of OSCE and UNHCR to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. There are also the numerous UN SC and GA resolutions on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict reflecting flagrant human rights violations of Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs.

It is also a matter of concern that in his written statement while referring to the UN documents on various conflicts by footnotes, the High Commissioner did not refer to any UN document on the conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Such differentiated approach of the High Commissioner ignores the existence of numerous UN documents on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, which is absolutely unacceptable.

In its documents, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights as the principal human rights agency of the United Nations should stick to the official UN terminology which is reflected in the relevant UN SC resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) and GA resolutions (48/114, 60/285 and 62/243), namely “the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan”.

We strongly urge the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to continue to keep under consideration the human rights aspects of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and to pay due attention to the large scale human rights violations of Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs as a result of the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan in accordance with the relevant UN SC and GA resolutions", the document declares.