Government Prepares Plan for Big Return to Karabakh

Baku / 30.10.20 / Turan: The Azerbaijani army, in the battles begun on September 27, liberated the vast territories previously occupied by Armenia in Fizuli, Terter, Jabrail, Zanghilan and Gubadli regions and the town of Hadrut with adjacent villages in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani refugees from these regions, speaking on TV channels, report their intentions to return to the settlements, from which they were forced to flee in 1992-1994.

The Turan news agency appealed to the State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons with questions about the conditions for the relocation of internally displaced persons to their regions liberated by the army. The telephone (N 530 8237) questions posed to the employees of the Department of International Relations, Information and the Press Service of the State Committee were not answered. The staff twice, on September 29 and 30, promised to call and report the answers, but did not fulfill their promises.

Several years ago, an employee of the State Committee for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons in a private conversation told Turan that this department had a plan for the mass return of internally displaced persons to Karabakh. The plan provides for the number of displaced persons, the number of buses required for their transportation, and the places of resettlement. The return process will be carried out with the participation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in compliance with the law and the rights of citizens to real estate acquired during the years of temporary residence in Baku and other cities and villages of Azerbaijan.

Vugar Bayramov, a deputy from the Fizuli region, a member of the Labor and Social Policy Commission of the Milli Mejlis, explained in an interview for the press that before resettling people in Karabakh, it would be necessary to assess the agrarian capabilities of the regions on the spot, clear the territories of mines, and then form the infrastructure of the liberated regions. People should wait until residential, administrative and social buildings are built there, and until jobs are created.

First of all, citizens who were evicted from these regions as a result of the aggression of Armenia and who are now living in hostels will move there. There will be no forced evictions, the authorities will proceed from the principle of voluntary relocation. Subsequently, methods of encouraging citizens to move to the liberated regions will be applied, Bayramov added.  –0------