New group formed to advocate for Karabakh Armenians’ return

By Mark Dovich

Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian said Thursday he would lead a new group to advocate for the right of Armenians forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh to return to their homes.

“Achieving enduring peace in the region remains unattainable when a segment of the Armenian people is forcefully uprooted from its homeland, and a coerced notion of ‘peace’ is imposed upon Armenia,” Oskanian wrote on Facebook.

More details will be made public “in the coming days,” the Committee for the Defense of the Fundamental Rights of the People of Artsakh said in a brief press release. No other information was immediately available.

Azerbaijan’s lightning offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh last September led to the collapse of the regional government and the forcible displacement of nearly all of the roughly 100,000 Armenians living there. The vast majority now reside in Armenia.

The European Union and United States, among others, have called on Azerbaijan to allow those who wish to return to their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh to do so.