Aykhan Hajizada: 'Alarming to see framing situation in our region as confrontation in religious terms'

It is alarming to see framing the situation in our region as a confrontation in religious terms, which is detrimental to peace-building and reconciliation, Aykhan Hajizada, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in his response to the local media inquiry on the hearing at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US Congress on September 19, Report informs referring to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

"Moreover, claims at the hearing about the human rights situation in Azerbaijan expressed by some people and organizations that are under the payroll of the Armenian diaspora are null and void, and we categorically condemn such statements. It would be more appropriate for them to focus on violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms in Armenia that they patronage, including cases of the deaths in prison of persons arrested as a result of political persecution, as well as oppression of politicians and their family members.

The so-called “Artsakh” referred in the hearing was nothing than an illegal entity established in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan by Armenia as a result of military occupation and ethnic cleansing of around 750,000 Azerbaijani civilians from the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Similarly, misrepresentation of the geographic name of a part of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory of Karabakh region as being “Artsakh” is a clear violation of the principles and procedures for international standardization of geographical names, as well as alteration of standards of use of national and foreign geographic names by the US Government authorities approved by the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN), as required by the US Public Law 80-242 (1947)," he noted.