NGOs in Nagorno-Karabakh are dissatisfied with US DoS' formulations

A number of youth nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Nagorno-Karabakh made a joint statement on the report of the US Department of State (DoS) on respect of human rights in Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2008. The NGOs voice their protest against those points in the report, which, in their opinion, distort the essence of Karabakh conflict.

"It is extremely regrettable that DoS' reports are confusing readers by the statement that 'ethnic Armenian separatists [...] are still controlling the major part of the Nagorno-Karabakh region...' Here, that fact is completely ignored that the so-called 'Armenian separatists' are actually the indigenous population of Nagorno-Karabakh, and 'are controlling' the land of their ancestors, having the right to live in their homeland and feel free from the repressive Azerbaijani regime," the statement runs.

The document was signed by all the youth organizations registered in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The authors of the above report failed to recognize the today's realities and ignore the existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, one of the few countries in Eastern Europe created through the most democratic procedure - the all-nation referendum and free will of people, as the statement says.

On the publication day of the US DoS' report, the network of civil society "Refugees and International Law" made a statement expressing their concern of the approaches announced at the current stage of settling the Nagorno-Karabakh problem by co-chairs of the Minsk OSCE Group, authorities of Azerbaijan, and of the stand of the leaders of the Republic of Armenia and Karabakh.

"In the course of their last visit to the region, the co-chairs of the Minsk Group again distorted the essence of the refugees' problem, having presented it exclusively in the context of Azerbaijanis' return to the places of their former residence in the nowadays state territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. The mediators did not even recollect the need to defend the rights and interests of half a million of Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan," the authors of the statement remark.