Azerbaijan, Baku, July 13 / Trend S. Agayeva /
Official Baku expects the OSCE's objectivity in assessing the situation with the settlement of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani ambassador to Austria, accredited to the OSCE, Fuad Ismayilov told Trend.
The OSCE Minsk Group's autumn visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan will be a mission to assess the situation with the settlement of these territories. A report will be prepared as a result of the mission, ambassador said over phone from Vienna.
The OSCE paid the first such visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in 2005 at the request of official Baku.
The OSCE mission has confirmed the facts of settling the occupied territories, by confirming the concern of Azerbaijan. The report of the mission indicates 15,000-16,000 people. However, official Baku has not agreed with the presented data.
The Azerbaijani side estimated that about 20,000-23,000 Armenians have been settled in the occupied territories even before the beginning of the monitoring mission.
Today, the Azerbaijani side has new data about the settlement. It is waiting for proposals from the OSCE on its staff and format of the mission, and, of course, the objective results of its work, Ismayilov said.
Armenian officials do not conceal the fact of the Armenian settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent occupied regions of Azerbaijan.
About $ 350 million will be required to resettle Armenian refugees to Nagorno-Karabakh within three years, the Armenian Territorial Administration Ministry migration agency head Gagik Yeganian said.
He said that about 100,000 people can be settled in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the Armenian media reported.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied territories.