Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev felt a sudden upsurge of humanism and compassion toward his fellow citizens. He decided to grant a little over U.S. $3.5 million of his petrodollar billions (the limit of his generosity) from his “President’s reserve fund” to “improve housing of refugee families and IDPs”.

Under Aliyev’s decree 3 million manats are allotted for development and construction of high-raise buildings for about 700 families. According to it, State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan should consider the project while planning FY 2010 budget.

The Aliyev’s decision might be considered an alert of Azeri authorities, who reached the ceiling in “millions of refugees” propaganda thesis potential.

As is known, within last ten years refugees in Azerbaijan had special reservations to be showcased to foreign delegations as a proof of “Armenian aggression”. However, in Armenia (the poor and weak –Azeri term) the refugees problem was attempted to be solved as they were arriving during the armed conflict.

Hundreds of thousand Armenians fell victims of atrocities in Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad and other Azeri cities. The problem was aggravated by earthquake in Spitak at that time (North Armenia) leaving another hundreds of thousands bereft of home. Nevertheless, Armenian leadership was decent enough not to speculate on their grief and keep refugees by force in reservations. That’s another story, that the issue of refugees in Armenia could be solved more effectively.