Baku accuses Yerevan of settling Syrian Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh

BAKU

Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of settling Armenians who fled conflict in Syria to the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said Baku has repeatedly expressed its discontent with this issue to OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairmen, the Azerbaijani news website Trend.az reported yesterday. “This issue is fully on our agenda, and we are already discussing this with the co-chairs, noting its illegality,” he said. “We asked them [the Minsk Group co-chairs] to clarify whether Syrian Armenians were there [in Nagorno Karabakh] or not,” Mammadyarov also said. “The number of Syrian Armenians in Karabakh is not very big. We are attentively observing this issue,” the minister said, according to News.az news website. Armenia-backed separatists seized Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan in a war in the 1990s that left some 30,000 dead. No final peace deal has been signed since the cease-fire was established.