Azerbaijani refugees living in Nagorno-Karabakh protest against project of city intended for their residency

Commenting on the presentation of the project of a new city for refugees from Azerbaijan, held in Yerevan, Saro Saryan, Chairman of the NGO of the Nagorno-Karabakh refugees, called it a politically ill-considered step. According to him, refugees will unlikely agree to move once again.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the presentation of a new city in the security zone around Nagorno-Karabakh for Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan was held on November 11 in Yerevan in the course of the 3d meeting of the Presidium of the Azerbaijani Armenian Congress. In accordance with the project, the city under the working title Bagaran with territory of 20,000 square kilometres will be built on the bank of the Khagari River.

Saro Saryan believes the refugees will unlikely agree to move once again. "Many refugees have left for Russia or even further. They have settled there, and I do not think they would agree to live in the city under construction. A different matter, if they are invited to live in the cities of Stepanakert or Shushi. And those people who have settled in Armenia and in Nagorno-Karabakh are immigrants from the cities of Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad, and these people would not agree to live far from the city," the NGO's leader has explained.

According to him, although "many of us do not have own houses or apartments and still live in the dorms, we work in the city and we live in an urban environment." He has emphasized that during 20 years the refugees "had long integrated into society and now they treat themselves as part of the Nagorno-Karabakh society and perfect citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh."

"The new city can split the society, dividing it into local residents and refugees. Besides, I do not exclude that, later, the international institutions would impose Azerbaijani refugees, stating that we should live together, since we all are refugees," Saro Saryan has emphasized.

Ruzanna Avakyan, the refugee from Sumgait, the representative of the refugees' NGO in Stepanakert, was indignant by the idea to build a city for the refugees from Azerbaijan.

"Why will this city be intended namely for refugees? I'm not going to live there, even if they give me an apartment and a job there. I do not want to live on the border with Azerbaijan. I would better appeal to an international organization and ask them to allow my moving to another country than I appear to live in the city near Azerbaijan," the refugee stated.

She offers to give the city to those who want to build it. "Not a single refugee from Nagorno-Karabakh will agree to live there. And, in general, why the organization, which had developed such a project, failed to ask me what I do want? Let them come, I will gather all refugees, and they will listen to actual wishes of refugees from the Azerbaijani SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic)," Ruzanna Avakyan has stressed.

The activist has added that "this project suggests that refugees do not allegedly deserve to live where they want." "This suggests that refugees do not deserve to live among the Armenians, to live in the city. If we needed a city, we would long ago demand to construct a city somewhere in Russia, and we all would move to live there," the refugee from Sumgait stated.

Meanwhile, Andreas Gukasyan, the lawyer and the consultant of the 3d Congress of Azerbaijani refugees in Yerevan has emphasized that "in fact, integration of refugees from the Azerbaijani SSR into Armenian society had failed."

"Some of these people failed to integrate into the social system, and, in accordance with our calculations, 20 thousand people could potentially participate in the project," the lawyer has noted.

With regard to the financing, he has emphasized that many people, who became refugees in connection with the Karabakh conflict, had settled in other countries during 20 years; they became respectable people, who established their businesses, and they can also participate in implementation of such a project.

"This is not a charity project. What does a modern city represent? First of all, it provides jobs and investments in the company. This is a real project, based on the fact that refugees from the Azerbaijani SSR have the right to participate in such a project that they have the potential to implement such a project, and that the project could be viable if it is based on an economic basis," Andreas Gukasyan has emphasized.

According to him, at the same time, "the priority will be given to the refugees, to the people who are eligible due to the fact that they were expelled from the Azerbaijani SSR, and they suffered from the discrimination."

Azerbaijani people also did not want to support the project to create the new city. According to Bairam Safarov, the head of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, the construction of the city in Zangilan District is "nothing more than an empty, meaningless idea."

"Well, if they wish to build, let them build, since Azerbaijanis will live there. We will liberate our land and go back there," Bairam Safarov stated.

In the period of 1988-1991, as a result of the Karabakh conflict, more than 500 thousand Armenians from Azerbaijan had to leave their houses, about 360 thousand of them have settled in Armenia. At present, about three thousand refugees from Azerbaijan and about one thousand refugees from Iraq have been registered in the country. Other refugees received Armenian citizenship.