2024-02-10 15:08:11
Author: Elchin Alioglu
Source: Trend
Karabakh Armenians who voluntarily left Azerbaijan and went to Armenia will not be recruited into the Armed Forces of Armenia.
These Armenians, who received temporary status in Armenia and are recognized as internally displaced persons by the local authorities, cannot work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
According to the members of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration, the rights and obligations of Karabakh Armenians differ from the rights and obligations of Armenian citizens. The difference is regulated by the “Refugees and Asylum” law.
The official statement released by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia states that Karabakh Armenians have the right to own land plots and real estate, vote and be elected, form or join parties, hold positions in public structures, etc. will have no rights.
The reason is that they are not citizens of Armenia.
“If they receive Armenian citizenship, then those persons will continue to benefit from the government’s social support programs,” the statement issued by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Armenia says.
According to the statements of the official structures of Armenia, the number of Armenians from Karabakh who went to Armenia as a result of the local anti-terrorist measures carried out by the Azerbaijani army on September 19-20 last year is 102 thousand people.
On October 26 of last year, the Armenian government granted temporary protection status to those persons, which was equaled to the status of refugees and then to the status of internally displaced persons.
In fact, the authorities of Armenia take a position very far from reality.
The number of Karabakh Armenians who left Azerbaijan and went to Armenia is by no means 100 or 102 thousand people. Local territorial administration in settlements near the conditional state border with Azerbaijan, etc. according to statistical calculations made by official structures in those days, 43,529 Armenians entered Armenia from Azerbaijan via Lachin.
Giving those Armenians the status of refugees or IDPs is also related to the purely political desire of the government of Yerevan, Nikol Pashinyan, to receive large amounts of financial resources from the West as humanitarian aid, using the expression “Armenian IDPs from Karabakh”.
The reality is that Karabakh Armenians must confirm their status as either refugees or internally displaced persons, which is again impossible from the point of view of international law.
Because the Armenians from Karabakh, who received Armenian passports en masse shortly after the beginning of the Karabakh conflict, were de jure citizens of Armenia and de facto residents of Azerbaijan.
During the 30-year occupation, these Armenians, who were not subject to the central government of Azerbaijan and were ruled by a separatist junta, received salaries, pensions, and payments from Armenia. The activities of the junta were financed from the state budget of Armenia.
Recall that the status of “refugee” is defined in the UN documents as follows: “A person who, for completely justified reasons, is in danger of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, citizenship, belonging to a certain social group or political views, who is outside the country of citizenship or for the listed reasons Any person who does not want to use the protection of his country is considered a refugee.
The term “refugee” was first used in international law in the Convention on the Status of Refugees adopted in 1951, and later in UN documents.
It is for this reason that Karabakh Armenians who left Azerbaijan for Armenia and continue to leave cannot be considered as refugees or internally displaced persons.
Since they have Armenian passports, they are considered citizens of Armenia from the point of view of international law, and the fact that these persons turn to Armenia is considered to be simply moving around under the protection of the state.
Since they cannot be considered “refugees”, the only way out for Karabakh Armenians is to be considered “displaced persons” according to international law. But since they left Azerbaijan and went to Armenia, they cannot be considered as forced migrants, because they went from the territory of another country (Azerbaijan).
That is, those who are persecuted in their own country for the reasons we have listed, and who do not have the citizenship or residence permit of any other country, are considered refugees.
According to the points we discussed, currently the UN, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as well as the states and institutions that support Armenia, can characterize Karabakh Armenians as neither refugees nor IDPs.
Because the UN and USAID agencies know this, they declared the Karabakh Armenians who went to Armenia from Azerbaijan as “other persons in need of protection”: aid is given using this very phrase.
In November 2023, the Armenian Police started accepting applications for Armenian citizenship from Karabakh Armenians who received temporary protection status. Within two months, only 735 people wrote such applications.
Only 53,000 Karabakh Armenians received the temporary protection status document.
If this is the case, it is puzzling which “more than 100,000 Armenians from Karabakh” the authorities of Armenia, international organizations and organizations of the Armenian diaspora are talking about.
Although Karabakh Armenians who went to Armenia from Azerbaijan are accommodated in hotels and boarding houses, most of them preferred to stay in rented apartments and houses. Official institutions paid 100,000 drams (about $250) as a one-time allowance to every Karabakh Armenian who took refuge in Armenia. In addition, each family was given 50,000 drams ($125) for house rent and 10,000 drams ($25) for utility bills for 6 months.
Half of these Armenians have already received the status of temporary settlers.
Each of them was given a temporary Armenian passport with a special code “070”, which can be used only during trips abroad.
Armenians from Karabakh were granted the status of temporary settlers for a period of 1 year. After this period ends, they must either accept Armenian citizenship or be specially registered as a stateless person.
However, the number of Armenians from Karabakh who want to renew their Armenian passport is small, because they think that if they make such a decision, they will have to say goodbye to the benefits they received as refugees.
At the same time, they think that they are humiliated and insulted.
During the 30 years when 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory was occupied by Armenia, Armenians from Karabakh had Armenian passports. They visited Armenia and foreign countries with this passport, received their salaries, allowances and pensions from Yerevan as citizens of Armenia.
And now Nikol Pashinyan’s administration has declared them “persons without Armenian citizenship”.
It seems that Armenians from Karabakh are only needed as a means and a tool in the power circles of Armenia.