Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

An Azerbaijani MP has highlighted the recent PACE call for the withdrawal of Armenian occupying forces from Azerbaijan’s territories as a victory for the country.

Samad Seyidov, head of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, said the organization’s call for Armenia to withdraw its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied Azerbaijani territories was a direct result of the foreign policy pursued by Azerbaijan’s president.

PACE’s political affairs committee approved on November 4 a draft resolution for “the withdrawal of Armenian armed forces and other irregular armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the other occupied territories of Azerbaijan and the establishment of full sovereignty of Azerbaijan in these territories," within the framework of the OSCE Minsk process.

Seyidov told Trend on November 5 that Armenians had always spread false statements on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and on issues related to this problem.

“The recommendations of President Ilham Aliyev to pursue offensive diplomacy in this direction had to be implemented precisely. We always stand together as a party, seeking to restore the rule of law throughout Europe in this regard,” Seyidov noted.

The draft resolution, based on a report by PACE Rapporteur Robert Walter, is due to be debated by the Assembly at its January 2016 session.

The report, titled “Escalation of violence in Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan,” was also adopted by the committee on November 4.

The report focuses on the two-decade-old occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory and other territories of Azerbaijan.

It also notes the UN Security Council’s resolutions that call for the liberation of Azerbaijani territories; the fact that the decision, dated June 2015, of the European Court of Human Rights regarding the case, known as “Chiragov and others vs. Armenia,” proves Armenia is in control of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions; and the fact that Azerbaijani hostages Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev have been tried illegally by the unrecognized courts of a separatist regime in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenia occupied more than 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor, leading to a lengthy war in the early 1990s.

The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenia's withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but to date, they have not been enforced.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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