The U.S. Department of State has revised the “mistaken assertion” within the Armenia section of its recently released annual human rights report that “Armenia continues to occupy the Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno Karabakh and seven surrounding Azerbaijani territories,” the Panarmenian was told at the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA). The amended language has been posted on the Department's website. It read as follows: “Armenian forces occupy large portions of Azerbaijan territory adjacent to Nagorno Karabakh. Armenian officials maintain that they ‘do not occupy’ Nagorno Karabakh itself.” The Azerbaijan section, which included nearly identical language, has yet to be revised, reported the news source.
”To say that Nagorno Karabakh is an Azerbaijani territory and that Armenia occupies Nagorno Karabakh and other territories is to ignore the very fundamentals of this conflict. These statements only serve to send the wrong message to the Azerbaijani side and further complicate the peace negotiations,” Panarmenian cited Ken Hachikian, the chairman of ANCA commenting on this matter, as saying.
This information was originally published April 20, 2007 (www.panarmenian.net). -- 05/03/2007