International conference on Western Azerbaijan held at Capitol Hill in Washington

BAKU, Azerbaijan — An international conference on “The right of return and self-determination: double standards and selective approaches” will be held in Washington, at the Capitol Hill, organized by the Baku Initiative Group on June 24, 2026.

According to the report, this will be remembered as the first such event held in the U.S. Congress on the alleged “ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis by Armenia.”

The conference will be attended by experts specializing in the protection of the rights of refugees and national minorities, human rights defenders, specialists in international law, representatives of diaspora organizations that have been subjected to violence, discrimination, and persecution based on their ethnicity, representatives of civil society institutions, and representatives of affected communities.

The conference participants will discuss the issue of maintaining the recognition of fundamental rights – the right to safe, voluntary, and dignified return to their historical lands – in the focus of attention of international organizations, following the example of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis who were allegedly “forcibly expelled from their historical lands in Armenia as a result of the policy of ethnic cleansing.”

The participants will exchange views on the possibility of providing a legal assessment of the alleged “systematic destruction, insult and appropriation of the cultural, religious and historical heritage of the Azerbaijani people remaining in Armenia, including toponyms, mosques, cemeteries, shrines and other monuments, in the international legal framework, bringing the mentioned violations to international accountability and monitoring mechanisms within the framework of the UN and its relevant structures, investigating and documenting them on site, involving fact-finding missions for this purpose, as well as developing investigation and accountability mechanisms at the level of special rapporteurs and other international mandate holders.”

The event will also discuss the implementation of the right to self-determination of peoples suffering from colonialism, in particular, the inclusion of colonies on the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories to be Decolonized on the UN agenda.

Conference venue and time: Washington, U.S. Congress, Kennedy Caucus Hall, Russell Senate Office Building, June 24, at 09:00.