12:10, 7 March 2021

Gadrut refugees' demands meet web users' objections

Destroyed house in the Kalbajar District. Photo by Aziz Karimov for the Caucasian Knot

The issue of Armenian population's return to Gadrut should be resolved after the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Nagorno-Karabakh, Internet users have noted. Some of them have treated the protest actions held by refugees from Gadrut as the aim of obtaining political asylum in Europe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that refugees from the districts of Nagorno-Karabakh that passed under Azerbaijan's control after the war, at their action in Stepanakert demanded to start peace talks on the transfer of the lost territories to the Armenian party and the return of refugees to their homes. Activists are asking the world community to provide people from the Gadrut District with the international refugee status and political asylum "in any civilized country in the world."

The full-scale combat actions took place in Nagorno-Karabakh in the period from September 27 to November 9, 2020. The "Caucasian Knot" has released a map marking the deployment of peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh. Another map prepared by the "Caucasian Knot" indicates what territories Azerbaijan got after the autumn war.

Just like Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were expelled from their homes, the Azerbaijani population has also been expelled earlier, Instagram users have recalled. "Did they think about the Azerbaijanis who were expelled from their homes in early 1990s?" the user ali_ba_ba095 has asked in a comment in the Instagram page of the "Caucasian Knot".

Readers of the "Caucasian Knot" have called for resolving the issue of the return of the Armenian population to Gadrut after the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Karabakh.

"Having occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and seven districts around it, Armenia did not even want to hear about the return of 800,000 Azerbaijanis to their homes. Why do you now talk about Gadrut? When we return to Khankendi, then the Armenians could also return to Gadrut," the user burton has suggested.

The actions in Stepanakert and Yerevan are primarily pursuing the goal of obtaining asylum in Europe, the author of the blog "Wind from Apsheron" that he runs on the Caucasian Knot believes. "The Azerbaijani refugees expelled from Gadrut and other Karabakh districts in 1992-1993 did not put forward any demands to Europe for permissions to live there. A little more, and Armenians will remove the first point from their demand – the return to Gadrut, leaving only the second one – permanent residence in Europe," he suggested in the publication "Gadrut residents demand return to their district, or international refugee status" dated March 5.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on March 6, 2021 at 09:53 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.