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OSCE Will Not Visit Occupied Shahumian, Getashen, Northern Martakert

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  • OSCE Will Not Visit Occupied Shahumian, Getashen, Northern Martakert

    OSCE MISSION WILL NOT VISIT OCCUPIED SHAHUMIAN, GETASHEN AND NORTHERN
    MARTAKERT

    Azg/arm
    29 Jan 05

    The OSCE co-chairs and the Minsk group monitoring mission arrived in
    Baku yesterday. They will visit Yerevan on January 29 and Stepanakert
    on 30.

    Armenia gave consent to OSCE monitoring mission when Azerbaijan agreed
    to take the formula on "situation in Azerbaijani occupied territories"
    back from the UN General Assembly.

    Official Yerevan, foreign and defense ministers in particular, even
    expressed satisfaction on the coming mission in Nagorno Karabakh's
    contiguous territories. Oskanian said that it is Azerbaijan that
    should fret as they carried out inhabitation of Shahumian and Getashen
    regions on state level. "The monitoring group will arrive to assess
    the situation with inhabiting. Azerbaijan will get puzzled when it
    appears that most of the inhabitants are refugees from Shahumian,
    Getashen and Northern Martakert" he said.

    "Firstly, our state implements no policy of inhabitation, secondly,
    the world knows that there is a safety zone. And, at least, that will
    be a chance to see if, say, Shahumian or other regions are inhabited
    with Azeris or not, if Azerbaijan is really inhabiting the territories
    or not", Serge Sargsian said.

    The OSCE monitoring group is reportedly not going to visit the regions
    of Shahumian, Getashen and Northern Martakert - territories under
    Azerbaijan's occupation.

    Vahram Atanesian heading the Commission on Foreign Affairs of Nagorno
    Karabakh said that Karabakh is open for any kind of monitoring but was
    concerned that the mission will visit only territories under Karabakh
    forces' supervision passing by the territories occupied by Azerbaijan
    and inhabited by Azeris, according to official Baku.

    "We would like the monitoring mission to learn the situation in
    Shahumian, Getashen and in the north of Martakert too. The
    inhabitation there started in 1991. Ayaz Mutalibof, the Azeri
    president of the time, participated at the inhabitation of Getashen
    region with Meskhet-Turks", Atanesian said.

    Authorities in Karabakh expressed readiness to create favorable
    conditions for the mission work. Seyran Ohanian, minister of defense
    of Karabakh, noted at the new conference that "those territories are
    under Karabakh's total control" but "we cannot forbid our citizens to
    farm in this regions". "There is a long talk process ahead to decide
    the fate of these territories and any decision concerning the
    territories should be taken in the framework of this process".

    The Shahumian-Getashen Union turned to the European Court of Human
    Rights to institute an action against Azerbaijan. "The court took
    cases of 4 families but the proceeding is not under way yet",
    president of the Union, Edik Balayan, said. Balayan said that those
    families' property was taken away. The population of the 26 villages
    under Azeris' supervision left without property. "Our right of
    property was violated, and the sate has to compensate for this",
    Balayan said.

    Is not that likely that the Azeris will follow Armenia's example and
    demand compensation? Balayan said that most of the Azeris who left
    Armenia managedto change their flats. He had no information whether
    Azerbaijan turned to the European Court or not. But according to Trend
    agency of Azerbaijan, 10 Azeri refugees appealed to the court in
    Strasburg demanding compensation.

    By Tatoul Hakobian
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