A member of Azerbaijan`s parliament from the New Azerbaijan Party Sahiba Gafarova has reiterated the importance of ensuring the withdrawal of the Armenian military from Azerbaijan`s occupied territories.

“The Armenian armed forces must withdraw from Azerbaijan`s occupied lands, and refugees and IDPs must return to their homelands,” said Gafarova, who is also a member of the Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and chairperson of PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons, as she addressed an international conference entitled “Problem of refugees and migrants”, co-organized by the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) and Turkey`s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Istanbul. She said official Yerevan refuses to fulfill resolutions of the UN and other international organizations demanding the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the occupied lands. “Over million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs have been unable to return to their homelands for more than 20 years.”

She said: “The Armenian government is deliberately resettling Armenian citizens as well as refugees from other conflict-affected countries in the Azerbaijani lands, especially in Nagorno-Karabakh. The international community and international organizations must not turn a blind eye to this dirty policy, which runs contrary to the Geneva Conventions of 1949.”

MP from the New Azerbaijan Party Malahat Ibrahimqizi also attends the event.

The New Azerbaijan Party is a member of the ICAPP Standing Committee.