TODAY.AZ / Politics

Azerbaijan offers help to solving Syrian crisis

05 February 2016 [18:00] - TODAY.AZ

/By AzerNews/

By Aynur Karimova

The Syrian crisis, which has generated millions of refugees heading to the neighboring countries and Europe, has been in focus of the Supporting Syria and the Region Conference in London on February 4.

Co-organized by the UK, Germany, Kuwait, Norway and the United Nations, the conference aimed to generate significant new help for the immediate and longer-term needs of those affected by the Syrian conflict, including increased funding.

Addressing the conference President Ilham Aliyev stressed a very profound sympathy that Azerbaijan feels for the Syrian refugees.

The South Caucasus nation with more than 1.2 million refugees and IDPs, have expressed readiness to make contribution to resolving this problem.

"Azerbaijan is among those countries, which already contributed and will contribute to humanitarian development in Syria, but the most important is peace, ceasefire, and finding political solutions. Only after that, jobs will be created, education will be on the proper level and people will start to believe in their future," President Aliyev said.

Being a sufferer of refugee problem, today Azerbaijan shares the grave and problems of Syrian refugees as well. The government is providing financial assistance to the Syrian refugees.

"We ourselves suffered from a humanitarian disaster and crisis in the beginning of our independence, in the beginning of the 1990s when our neighboring Armenia launched an aggression against Azerbaijan," he noted.

The Azerbaijanis who were displaced from their homes as result of the brutal war were forced to live in refugee camps, tents, in very difficult conditions. They also lost all of their properties. They became homeless, jobless and without any means for living. That was a real humanitarian catastrophe.

"As a result of that aggression almost 20 percent of our internationally recognized territory became occupied. We were subject of ethnic cleansing, and more than a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced persons."

Every 8th citizen in Azerbaijan is a refugee, which is one of the highest per capita number of refugees.

The UN Security Council adopted four resolutions in 1993 demanding immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian forces from the territories of Azerbaijan, whilst Armenia ignored all of them.

President Aliyev also expressed confidence that only in the condition of stability and peace a country can develop and can overcome enormous difficulties.

Azerbaijan is ready to share its experience with Syria on how to deal with these enormous economic and social difficulties, as well as on job creation. Azerbaijan as a country with a substantial financial and economic potential managed to achieve that in the time of not peace, but ceasefire.

"Having ceasefire achieved in 1994 gave us an opportunity to develop," President Aliyev said. "Since that time Azerbaijan’s development has been very rapid, we have managed to provide decent housing conditions for almost 250,000 refugees. We have a hundred percent literacy, including among refugees. Ten years ago about 70 percent of refugees lived in poverty, now the rate of the poverty among refugees is only 12 percent, while total poverty is five percent, unemployment is five percent."

The people who held refugee status were granted compensations and benefits. Extensive measures were launched to ensure social protection of the refugees.

"During the last decade 1.5 million jobs were created in Azerbaijan," President Aliyev said. "We can share our experience in education, more than 3,000 schools were built in our country and, as I said, now literacy is hundred percent. We can share our experience in managing humanitarian crisis and we will do it."

Today, finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis as soon as possible is a number one issue on the international agenda. The Syrian crisis is on the focus of Azerbaijan as well. The country is keen to play its important role in this respect.

"We will continue to support our brothers and sisters in Syria. We are grateful to those countries who take this enormous burden to accommodate the Syrian refugees," President Aliyev added.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/147607.html

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