He made opening remarks at the 3rd International Conference on Mine Action on “Mitigating Environmental Impact of Landmines: Resource Mobilization for Safe and Green Future” in Baku on Friday, AzVision.az reports.

The official said the participants of this year’s conference gathered here not only to discuss the pressing issues of landmines and their impact on the environment, but also to reaffirm our collective commitment to create a safer and a greener world for all. “But at the center of this goal has always been a human being whose basic right is to live in a safe and secure environment.”

“Yesterday’s field trip to Zangelan and deliberations held there made it clear why mine action in a post-conflict environment matters so much. You saw large-scale reconstruction effort underway, and witnessed yourselves how vital transport communications, residential areas and other basic infrastructure are bult from scratch on the lands scorched by war.

But most importantly, you had a chance to meet some of the people who already returned to their newly built homes and started new lives. It is for these internally displaced people that we are heavily engaged in mine clearance work in Azerbaijan, to enable, at the end of the day, the return of almost 800 000 IDPs to their homes. 21 000 of them will be able to do so by the end of this year.  More than 100 residential settlements including 9 cities are planned to be built anew or restored in the coming years.  More than 7 bln USD have already been invested by the Government of Azerbaijan for reconstruction and rehabilitation activities since 2021,” he noted.

“All this would hardly be possible had we not ended the war with neighbouring Armenia and started to talk peace. The good news is that today we are more than ever before close to finalizing a peace deal. The key obstacle to peace – the presence of foreign occupation troops on our territory - has been removed. We fully restored our territorial integrity and sovereignty and today we have already started to make steady progress on delimitation of our state border with Armenia. We hope that very soon the remaining issues on the road to final peace will be also taken care of and peace between our nations will become irreversible and sustainable. Azerbaijan is committed to do its part of the job. Hopefully, this will also be the case with Armenia,” Amirbayov added.

The bad news is that all this huge reconstruction and rehabilitation effort as well as Azerbaijan’s plans to bring hundreds of thousands of displaced people back to their homes are seriously hampered by enormous mine challenge the country is facing, the presidential representative stressed.

He pointed out that Azerbaijan is sadly among the top 5 most heavily mine-contaminated countries in the world with 1.5 million landmines planted across 12% of national territory.

“Landmines pose severe human security risk even after war. Unfortunately, even after the ceasefire was reached in November 2020, Armenia has created new mined zones of a total length of 500 km. Only in the course of these last three and a half years 361 Azerbaijanis, among them children and women, have become mine victims as a result of more than 200 incidents. Sadly, these figures are on the rise almost every week and continuous refusal by Armenia to provide us with accurate information on locations with planted mines is exacerbating the challenge.

As President of Azerbaijan Mr Ilham Aliyev noted in his address to the conference, beyond purely human security and humanitarian risk, landmines seriously hinder sustainable socio-economic development and the achievement of SDGs.”

According to the official, causing land erosion and loss of fertility, mines lead to soil degradation.

“Mine action was long confined to meeting the basic security needs of people. In the wake of the adoption of universal development goals, focus started to move towards mine action as an enabler of post-conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation, socio-economic development and improving people’s lives,” he said.

“By introducing last year at the national level the 18th SDG on humanitarian demining Azerbaijan actively works to raise global awareness on the landmine problem and to facilitate international support for the countries that are most affected by this deadly scourge. And this conference is part of this effort.

As almost everything in life, mine action has a cost, and it is not a cheap business. Today it is the Government of Azerbaijan that covers more than 90 per cent of resources needed for demining in the country. As you probably have seen from the infographics shared with you by ANAMA, the scope of the mine problem is so huge that it is estimated to take decades to complete the process. We are proud to have a professional and efficient national mine action agency, ANAMA, which is today better equipped and staffed than some years ago and it’s doing a great job. We are also proud to have the first group of female deminers who recently joined our common effort. But unfortunately, current level of foreign assistance in mine action is highly insufficient constituting less than 10% of the total allocated amount.  We hope that this conference will contribute to increased participation of our international partners in sharing the burden of the mine challenge in Azerbaijan. And using this opportunity, I would like to thank each and every country and organization that donated resources in order help us cope with the challenge,” he added.

Amirbayov also touched upon the upcoming COP29 in Baku.

“As a pre-cursor for COP29, our Conference focuses on impact of landmines to environment. Over the course of this conference, in various panels, we will engage in discussions on a wide array of topics, related, among others, to the environmental impact of the use of landmines. We will also review lessons learned in building national capacities for sustainable environmental rehabilitation and look at the latest technological innovations in mine action. Participants will explore the interlink between mine action and climate resilience as well as ways of effective mobilization of resources and global solidarity for mine action, including international collaboration for a so-called “green mine action”.

We are privileged to have here among us distinguished representatives from international organizations, renowned policymakers and high-level experts. Your presence here signifies a shared commitment to this cause and an acknowledgement of the urgency with which we must act. I take this opportunity to thank each one of you for joining us today.

And last but not least. I would like to recognize with gratitude United Nations’ long-lasting and fruitful partnership with Azerbaijan on the issue of demining and in particular the UNDP’s coordination role in facilitating foreign aid for mine action in Azerbaijan as well as its support to building capacity of ANAMA since 1998,” he said.

“We welcome in this context the signature yesterday by ANAMA and UNDP of the letter of intent on the establishment of International Center of Excellence and Training for mine action in Azerbaijan that may serve as a hub for training and capacity building, certification and knowledge transfer at national, regional and international levels.

To conclude, allow me to thank all our international partners and friends, and I would rather not call names not to miss anyone, who have supported or intend to support us in this noble task of clearing mines to save innocent human lives, to enable those uprooted by war to go back to their homes but also to move jointly towards a safer and greener world,” the official concluded.

AzVision.az

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