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Baku hosts international conference on problems of stateless persons

15 October 2010 10:55 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Lachin Sultanova â€“ APA. The round table â€œPrevention and reduction of statelessnessâ€ co-organized jointly by UNHCR, Council of Europe and Azerbaijani government was held in Baku, APA reports.

Arun Sala-Ngarm, UNHCR’s representative in Azerbaijan said the aim of the round table was to continue the dialogue and discussion on the implementation of the law on citizenship of Azerbaijan Republic, exchange views on the causes of the statelessness in the country, its prevention and reduction of its level. According to him, the ministers for migration will meet in Geneva in December to discuss the gaps and problems in statelessness.

Veronika Kotek, Special Representative of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in Azerbaijan said the number of stateless persons was increasing. Noting that the Council of Europe adopted convention on the rights of the stateless persons in 1997, Veronika Kotek said Azerbaijan had not joined the convention yet, she expressed her hope for it. Underlining the necessity of transparency of the procedure for getting the status of statelessness, Kotek said though Azerbaijan had not joined the convention, the procedure must be based on those principles. She noted that at the end of the round table recommendations would be adopted for the Azerbaijani government.

Ramil Osmanov, Head of Sector on Migration and Citizenship of the Presidential Administration said much had been done in this field in Azerbaijan, the government had formed its accurate policy in the field of migration, legislative basis had been improved.
â€œAzerbaijani government is interested in applying all progressive norms in its practice,â€ he said.

Deputy chief of the migration policy and legal provision department of the State Migration Service Vahid Gahramanov noted that his organization carried out all commitments taken for 2006-2010.

Representative of the UNHCR headquarters in Geneva Ms. Jorunn Brandvoll spoke about the UNHCRâ€™s role in protection of stateless persons. She said there were 12 million stateless people in the world and according to official reports it was 6.6 million. â€œMost of the stateless people are living in Asia, particularly in Thailand and Nepal. We have no exact information about the stateless people in India and Pakistan, but we suppose there are many stateless people in those countriesâ€. Ms. Brandvoll said most of the stateless people in Europe were former USSR citizens. She reported about the work done for such people in former USSR countries. She said two non-governmental organizations in Georgia working with the ethnic minorities identified 9 000 ethnic Azerbaijanis who have stateless status and 2333 of them were assisted to receive identity documents.
Brandvoll said Azerbaijan had positive experience in the field of work with stateless people. In 1998, people came from Armenia and Uzbekistan automatically received citizenship.

Ms. Brandvoll said Azerbaijan joined 1954 and 1961 international conventions and now there were 2700 stateless people in Azerbaijan. But Brandvollâ€™s report was not confirmed by the Azerbaijani officials. Representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs said that there were 1954 stateless people in Azerbaijan until 2007, but later the ministry didnâ€™t conduct registration. Representative of the Migration Service said his organization didnâ€™t give such status and added that if the Ministry of Internal Affairs gave 1954 identity cards, this figure couldnâ€™t be increased in the past period.