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Minister: There canâ€™t be an influx of tourists to occupied Azerbaijani lands

20 June 2017 11:11 (UTC +04:00)

There can not be an influx of tourists to the occupied Azerbaijani territories, Azerbaijan’s Culture and Tourism Minister Abulfas Garayev said on Tuesday.

World Tourism Organization (WTO) considers the promotion and organization of tourism in dangerous occupied territories inexpedient, said the minister commenting on Armenians constructing hotels in Nagorno-Karabakh and turning the homes of displaced Azerbaijanis into hostels, APA reported.

The minister noted that the WTO has condemned this fact.

“The organization has stated its decision that it’s inappropriate to promote and organize tourism in dangerous occupied territories. This is a decision of an international organization and applies to all countries worldwide. There are some countries abiding by this, but our neighbor is not among them,” he said.

Garayev stressed that Armenians continue to show disrespect to the relevant decisions.

“I don’t think that there will be a flow of tourists to the occupied Azerbaijani territories. It’s impossible. Some can go there with the help of their diaspora organizations and various individuals. As you know, people visiting the occupied lands are deprived of the opportunity to come to Azerbaijan,” he added.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in December 1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.