Melkumyan: in Karabakh settlement we must raise issue on return of Armenian refugees to Azerbaijan

Grant Melkumyan, leader of the Communist Party of Nagorno-Karabakh, finds it illogical that in debates on Karabakh settlement they talk about Azerbaijani refugees, while there are more than half-million refugees-Armenians from Azerbaijan. In his opinion, it is also necessary to raise the issue about a similar return of Armenian refugees to Azerbaijan and Shaumyan and Martuni Districts of Karabakh.

He states that equivalency should be observed in any debate. In his opinion, only after deciding on the status and a complex of social issues, it will be possible to prepare the parties' societies to mutual concessions in return of refugees, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports.

"This is a complex issue that can be settled only after the international recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR)," said the leader of Karabakh communists. "Those people who recognize the republic's constitution can come back here. As to the issue of material and moral compensation to refugees, Azerbaijan, as the aggressor, shall bear responsibility for indemnifying all the refugees, irrespective of nationality."

Grant Melkumyan has emphasized that Armenians had been deported from Soviet Azerbaijan by the efforts of Azerbaijan authorities. "It was a real ethnic cleansing. Azerbaijanis left their homes because of the war unleashed by Azerbaijan," he has added.