UK criticised over apparent call to firms to help rebuild disputed region seized by Azerbaijan

The UK faces criticism after officials appeared to urge British businesses to help rebuild disputed areas of Azerbaijan just weeks after the state's military takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh led more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee the region.

- Jillian Ambrose

Officials from the Foreign Office and the business department held an online meeting with British business leaders in November to encourage them to take advantage of the "great opportunity" to support President Ilham Aliyev's rebuilding agenda.

The event, hosted by a business development network, was held six weeks after Azerbaijan seized the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, resulting in an estimated 120,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing the region and crossing into Armenia.

The latest territorial dispute, which follows decades of conflict in the region, led Armenians to accuse Azerbaijan of "ethnic cleansing", a claim Azerbaijan has denied.

In the days after Baku's military operations the UK publicly condemned the Aliyev regime's "unacceptable use of force" and warned it had "put at risk efforts to find a lasting peaceful settlement".

But a recording of the online meeting, shared with the Guardian by campaigners at Global Witness, includes one senior UK government official encouraging business leaders to take advantage of the financial opportunities in the "huge western chunk of the country that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up".