British MP: Int'l community's efforts vital to ensure IDP to return to their homes

The international community must increase its efforts to help the IDPs to return to their homes, British MP from the Labour Party, Stephen Hepburn said, replying to a survey by The European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS).

"I have visited Azerbaijan, with my Labour colleagues as well as with colleagues from other parties.

"On my visits I have met with Trade Unions representatives and been pleasantly surprised at their level of activity. I have also met with workers at the BP operations, both from the UK and Azerbaijan, but the hardest hitting thing for me was visiting the camps for IDPs displaced from their homes by the war with Armenia. I have seen the new housing that the government is building for the IDPs but notwithstanding these efforts it is vital that the international community does more to ensure that these people are allowed to return to their homes," Hepburn said.

British MP said that on each visit he has been impressed by the progress made in Azerbaijan.

"According to UN figures the number of Azerbaijanis living below the poverty line has dropped from 49 per cent in 2000 to just 6 per cent in 2012 and it was obvious when I visited that this development is still ongoing today. But the one thing I learned that I remember most is that the linesman who awarded England the goal in the World Cup of 1966 was not in fact a Russian as reported here but an Azerbaijani called Tofiq Bahramov. We will always be grateful for his decision that day," the MP said.


/Trend/