Baku, Azerbaijan, June 23
Trend:
Co-rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of Azerbaijan, Tadeusz Iwinski issued a report on "The functioning of democratic institutions in Azerbaijan" in the second day of the summer session of the Assembly.
"Twenty percent of Azerbaijani territory is occupied, there are more than a million refugees and internally displaced people," he said in the report.
Iwinski also noted that the report was difficult for him.
"It was difficult. Twenty percent of Azerbaijani territory is occupied, more than a million refugees exist. Unfortunately, it's true. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights in its decision on the case of "Chiragov and others against Armenia" notes Armenia's effective control over Nagorno-Karabakh and the adjacent territories, and finding Lachin under the jurisdiction of Armenia."
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.