On November 27, Australian Ambassador to Turkey Ian Biggs, who is also accredited to Azerbaijan and Georgia, has met with the members of Azerbaijani and Turkish communities in Sydney.
The parties discussed a range of issues of mutual concern, including the recent efforts for the development of economic and political relations between Azerbaijan and Australia, and the opening of Azerbaijan’s embassy in Canberra from early next year.
Imametdin Kassoumov, President of Azerbaijani-Australian-Turkic Unity, brought to the attention of Mr. Ambassador the 25 October 2012 motion moved by the Hon. Marie Ficarra on “Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh Twentieth Anniversary”.
The aforementioned motion has been abusively mispresented in some mass media outlets, especially by Armenian press as the recognition by the New South Wales of the independence of internationally unrecognized Nagorno Karabakh, an area of a protracted, armed, fragile regional conflict between two former Soviet Union (USSR) countries of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which claimed over 30 000 lives and still killing hundreds of people each year.
It has been noted that the smear lobby campaign, conducted by Armenian lobby groups around the world, and by ANCA here in Australia, is designed to mislay the international community, delay peaceful negotiations process, and damage deep-rooted close relations of Azerbaijani-Turkish community of Australia in the NSW.
Mr. Biggs hailed the opening of Azerbaijan’s embassy in Canberra as a sign of development of relations between the two countries.
As to the motion in the NSW Legislative Council, the ambassador said he has visited Azerbaijan before and is aware of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, and the situation on refugees and IDPs in the country.
He added that his country recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders and supports peaceful negotiations on the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict within international law.
At the end of the meeting Mr. Biggs was presented with a book, “Unreconciled Differences: Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan” by well-known Canadian journalist Scott Taylor.
Mr. Kassoumov said he has presented this book to a number of Australian MPs as well.
Note that the conflict in Azerbaijan’s multi-cultural southwest region of Nagorno Karabakh erupted towards the end of Soviet rule in 1988 when Armenian military secessionists, using the chaos amid the loss of government control, started to drive out non-Armenian ethnic groups to proclaim an ‘independent country’.
The conflict still remains one of the most dangerous, fragile unfrozen conflicts in the post-Soviet Europe.
The UN Security Council has to date issued 4 resolutions (#822, #853, #874, #884) on unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, in addition to the repeated resolutions by the UN General Assembly and other international organizations.