“Our authorities, who were trying to represent themselves as sole leaders, have thrown away from the process and ignored the refugees all this time,” says member of Karabakh committee Ashot Manucharyan. He believes that the authorities of both Armenia and Karabakh are ignoring the rights of the refugees. “The organizations occupied in the issues of refugees are periodically making statements and saying that hundreds of people have been citizens of Azerbaijan and the government of Azerbaijan started a racist war against them but we have not taken any measures against it. They claim that they have been harassed, their properties had been burnt and annihilated, but no one pays attention to it. We understand that the Minsk Group almost does not exist, that the international institutions do not pay attention to it, but the authorities of Armenia and Karabakh are ignoring this issue,” said Mr. Manucharyan. He believes the government of Azerbaijan is protecting the interests of their refugees and they claim they have to return their places of living but the Armenians who used to live in Baku do not have the right to do that. “The words of these people are ignored. This tradition was adopted by Armenia about ten years ago and it still continues. They are ignoring the refugees and Karabakh because in Armenia everything is about 1-2 people only and they are the ones who solve all these issues. With our behavior we made Azerbaijan to change the meaning of the issue and allege that there are no Armenian refugees and there are only territories “occupied” from Azerbaijan and Azeri refugees. For more than ten years the government of Azerbaijan is representing the issue in this context, enrooting enmity in their society by misrepresenting the history, but we are ignoring this and closing our eyes,” said A. Manucharyan.
