Azerbaijani MFA calls USAID chief's statement on Karabakh Armenians' relocation "unfair"

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Spokesman Aykhan Hajizada has said it would be unreasonable and unfair to call the migration of Armenian residents of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region to Armenia a forced relocation.

Thus, Hajizada responded to the publication by USAID Administrator Samantha Power on the X platform, APA reports.

He noted that Power did not express any opinion against Armenia for almost 30 years, during which the Armenian Armed Forces kept the territory of Azerbaijan under occupation; on the contrary, even in the post-conflict period, she made statements that contradicted international law and Armenia’s obligations.

Hajizada recalled that during Samantha Power’s visit to the region, she met with Armenians who had left for Armenia, but the next day, while in Baku, refused to meet with Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons who were deprived of their fundamental rights as a result of Armenian aggression.

The diplomat emphasized that during the almost 30-year occupation, there was not a single visit at the USAID leadership level to learn about the difficult situation in which Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons, who are 10 times more, have found themselves.

On November 21, amidst growing anti-Azerbaijani sentiments in Washington, Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Samantha Power made another tearful and subdued tweet about Karabakh Armenians.

The tweet is presented below:

"Two months ago, Azerbaijan’s military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh forced more than 100k people to leave their homes & move into neighbouring Armenia. The U.S. continues to stand with the ethnic Armenians from NK.

Today, the U.S. is announcing an additional $4 million to help these displaced people. We’re grateful for the Armenian Government’s generous reception of the displaced & will continue to support them in getting people the help they need.

With this new funding, USAID partners, the World Food Programme, the International Federation of Red Cross and the 'People In Need, Inc.' are providing urgently needed humanitarian aid like food assistance, humanitarian protection & emergency shelter to >70k people. US humanitarian assistance for the NK response now totals $28M since 2020.

On my recent visit to Armenia, I got to hear directly from many of the displaced people from NK about the tremendous hardship, and heartbreak, of having to flee their homes. We will continue to do all we can to support them and those generously hosting them in Armenia,” she wrote.