PACE committee discusses destruction of forests in Azerbaijan's occupied territories

"As a result of Armenia's occupation of 20% of Azerbaijani territory, most of the forests have been destroyed," said member of Azerbaijani delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Rafael Huseynov, during his speech at the meeting of the PACE Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs.

According to Huseynov, the meeting covered several issues of great importance for present and future Europe: the "Report on Forests, Future of our Planet" prepared by the Russian MP Timchenko, which is supposed to be presented to the agenda of one of the next PACE sessions, caused serious discontent. Together with some European MPs, I also made a speech, criticizing non-reflection in report the serious damage to forests as a result of Armenian occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, and highlighted the need to add the text regarding this problem," MP said.

According to the MP, most of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, which are currently under Armenian control, were covered by forests.

"I said that most of these forests have been destroyed. In these forests, some trees have been written into the Red Book, those of rare species. But the occupiers, without taking this into account, completely destroyed the forests, destroying them for raw materials for the furniture industry," said the member of the delegation.

The Azerbaijani MP stressed the overall importance of taking urgent measures relating to the fate of forests in the territory of not only Azerbaijan, but also in other European territories where armed conflicts take place. The Committee recommended Huseynov to prepare a separate document in this regard.


/Trend/