BAKU USES UN PULPIT TO ATTACK ARMENIA
Thursday, October 3rd, 2013
Azeri fighters are members of a sabotage unit called Jaish
al-Muhajireen wal-Ansar
Neglects to say Azeri mercenaries’ role in rebel movement.
UNITED NATIONS-A day after assuming its temporary-month-long- seat
on the United Nations Security Council, Azerbaijan used its pulpit
to attack Armenia by accusing it of settling Syrian Armenian refugees
in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, reported Agence France Presse.
Azerbaijan’s UN ambassador said Armenia had started a “very dangerous
process” by moving Syrian Armenians into Nagorno-Karabakh.
In August, Azeri news sources, citing Syrian opposition Web sites,
reported that there are 60 Azeris among the ranks of the many different
armed rebel groups battling the Syrian government army. The sources
also reported that some 30 Azeris have been killed during clashes.
According to the same source, the great majority of the Azerbaijani
fighters are members of a sabotage unit called Jaish al-Muhajireen
wal-Ansar, whose leader is probably an Azerbaijani, Abu Yahan.
News sources in Azerbaijan reported in mid-July that “There are 400
Azerbaijanis fighting among the terrorist groups in Syria, Afghanistan,
and Pakistan, of which 3 are women.”
Armenia says it has accepted more than 10,000 Armenians from Syria.
But Armenia’s UN envoy said claims they have been moved into
Nagorno-Karabakh are “lies and distortion.”
“We continue to receive the reports testifying to purposeful (Armenian)
attempts aimed at encouraging some categories of Syrian refugees to
move to other conflict affected areas,” Azerbaijan’s UN envoy Agshin
Mehdiyev told a news conference.
“We have information that they already started it – settlement of
Syrian refugees in occupied territories – and of course it is a very
dangerous process with unpredictable consequences,” added Mehdiyev,
who is the UN Security Council president for October.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov raised the Syrian
Armenians issue in a speech to the UN General Assembly last week.
Mammadyarov said reports of Syrian Armenians being moved into
Nagorno-Karabakh “provide yet more evidence of Armenia’s deliberate
policy of annexation of Azerbaijani lands.”
Armenia’s UN ambassador Garen Nazarian told AFP that Azerbaijan was
“using the Syrian crisis for political goals.” He described the
Azerbaijan claims as “lies and distortion.”
Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian told the General Assembly
last week that his country was “alarmed” by the crisis in Syria.
“The number of refugees Armenia continues to receive already exceeds
10,000, but tens of thousands of Syrian-Armenians still remain in
that country,” he said.