Western Azerbaijan Community

The Western Azerbaijan Community is the legal successor of the organization, founded as the “Azerbaijan Refugee Society” on 28 December 1989, state-registered under the same name on 2 February 1992, and re-registered as  “Azerbaijan Refugee Society Public Union” on 5 September 2014. At a General Meeting of the Public Union on 3 August 2022, it  was renamed to the “Western Azerbaijan Community”, and the new Charter of the Community was approved. The Community established management bodies such as the General Meeting, the Board of Directors, and the Supervisory Board. Moreover, the Control-Inspection Commission, the Council of Elders, the Council of Intellectuals, the Board of Trustees, the Council of Women, the Youth Union, local representative offices, and representative offices abroad were established under the Community, and elections were held.

The Community is the only public institution dealing with the problems of Western Azerbaijani refugees since 1989, collecting and storing facts and documents about Azerbaijanis who became refugees in 1987-1991. In 1987-1991, up to 300,000 Azerbaijanis (49,928 families) were forcibly expelled from their homes in more than 170 villages inhabited only by Azerbaijanis in Western Azerbaijan (territory of modern-day Armenia) and in nearly 100 settlements (villages, settlements and towns) inhabited both by Azerbaijanis and Armenians. At that time, more than 200 of our compatriots were killed (some were shot to death, died in pre-planned road accidents, or frozen to death ) by Armenian chauvinists, and over 400 Azerbaijanis were injured. The houses and properties of many Azerbaijanis were burned down, looted and illegally seized.

Out of the 50,000 families forcibly expelled from Western Azerbaijan in 1987-1991, the damage inflicted on nearly 20,000 has already been calculated, and the necessary work is underway in this regard.

Accurate statistical data about each family (name, surname, patronymic) of refugees expelled from nearly 300 settlements in Western Azerbaijan in those years have already been collected. The Community keeps carrying out systematic activities to compile an accurate list of all examples of our historical and cultural heritage in Western Azerbaijan and assess their state.

The Western Azerbaijan Community is dealing with the protection of the rights of Azerbaijanis forcibly expelled from the territory of Armenia. The Community has already approved the “Concept of Return” – the concept on ensuring the peaceful, safe and dignified return of Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of present-day Armenia. This Concept defines the general framework for the objectives, principles, preparatory and implementation measures of the activity carried out by the Community for the return of Azerbaijanis forcibly deported from the territory of modern-day Armenia. The Concept is based on international law, relevant domestic law, historical facts, and serves to ensure justice and peace.

According to the concept, The Community does not accept the injustice committed against Western Azerbaijanis during the last two centuries and rejects its consequences. Based on the right to return enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and other important international acts, the Community declares the creation of conditions for the return of Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia to their homeland and ensuring their individual and collective rights after the return as its primary goal. The main objectives and principles of the activity to be implemented within the concept are as follows:

• Obtaining a legally binding international agreement with an appropriate verification and guarantee mechanism ensuring the voluntary return of Azerbaijanis expelled from the territory of nowadays Armenia to their homeland in safety and dignity;
• Securing the return process with appropriate security, humanitarian, socio-economic assistance programs;
• Establishment of international monitoring, accountability, security, intervention and other necessary activities to prevent a renewed expelling, discrimination and harm to the returned population;
• Ensuring sustainable rehabilitation and re-integration of returnees through the implementation of reconstruction and reconciliation measures under international supervision.

The Western Azerbaijan Community is an organization that takes an active part as the author in the implementation of the “Concept of Return” and continues its efforts to obtain resources within this legal framework for this purpose.

The Western Azerbaijan Community is determined to continue its struggle to ensure the recognition of the rights of our compatriots, who were unjustly expelled from their ancestral lands after being subjected to ethnic cleansing, deportation and genocide in the last 200 years, and their heirs to return to their homes.