BIG: Azerbaijan's return rights conference in Washington angers pro-Armenian groups

Azerbaijan's Baku Initiative Group (BIG) said pro-Armenian organisations attempted to disrupt an international conference held at the U.S. Congress that focused on the right of Azerbaijanis displaced from Armenia to return to their former homes.

Speaking to Baku TV on Monday (June 29), Abbas Abbasov, executive director of the Baku Initiative Group, said the event was held after two months of negotiations and was titled "The Right to Return and Self-Determination: Double Standards and Selective Approaches," according to local media.

According to Abbasov, pro-Armenian groups sought to have the conference postponed ahead of the event. He said the meeting took place in a congressional conference room named after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whom he described as having taken an "unfair" position toward Azerbaijan.

"The holding of an event dedicated to what we consider the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis from Armenia caused irritation among pro-Armenian groups," Abbasov said.

He added that five representatives of the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a prominent Armenian-American advocacy organisation, attended the conference, observed the proceedings, took notes and left without incident.

The conference centred on the issue of Azerbaijanis who left Armenia during the late Soviet period amid escalating ethnic tensions and conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku has increasingly called for international recognition of what it describes as the right of those displaced Azerbaijanis to return safely to their former places of residence.

Abbasov said Azerbaijan was not seeking territorial claims against Armenia.

"The issue is about people's right to return safely to their ancestral lands in accordance with international law and legal principles," he said.

By Aghakazim Guliyev