Lukashenko: People in Nagorno-Karabakh don't have decent life
By Rashid Shirinov
Armenia and Azerbaijan should sit at the negotiations table and solve the Karabakh problem without any strong or weak mediators, said Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus.
He made the remarks at the meeting with Armenia's Ambassador to Belarus Armen Khachatryan, who is completing his mission in Minsk on March 28.
“If they want to use someone as a guarantor, they must make this decision together,” he said, stressing that it is the right time to solve this issue today.
Azerbaijan and Armenia for over two decades have been locked in conflict, which emerged over Armenian territorial claims to Azerbaijan. Since the 1990s war, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.
The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the occupied lands of Azerbaijan, but they have not been enforced to this day.
While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign State with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.
“People should have a decent life and I don't believe that people in Nagorno-Karabakh have a decent life today,”’ Lukashenko further continued.
“Is this a decent life when you feel that you can be wounded or killed every day? Therefore, we have a univocal position: Armenia and Azerbaijan should sit at the negotiations table and solve this problem without any strong or weak mediators,” Lukashenko noted.
Lukashenko also spoke about the extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin who violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012. He was extradited from Minsk to Baku in February to stand trial for his violations.
The detention of the blogger in Belarus and his extradition to Azerbaijan were the subject of heated debate and protests in Armenia. President Lukashenko responded to these allegations:
“Does Armenia have anything to do with it? Armenia has never told me anything about Lapshin. Only one country, Azerbaijan, put him on the wanted list... Interpol knew about it. We had to report and we did it as law-abiding people,” Lukashenko said. “We had to extradite him to the country which had put him on the wanted list,” the Belarusian president added.
The blogger illegally visited Azerbaijan`s Armenia-occupied lands and now is charged under the articles 281.2 (appeals directed against state) and 318.2 (illegal border crossing) articles of the Criminal Code of Azerbaijan. He violated Azerbaijani laws on state border in April 2011 and October 2012.
Helped by his accomplices in the occupied territories, Lapshin paid a number of visits to Azerbaijan`s occupied lands, where he voiced support for "independence" of the illegal regime, and made public calls against Azerbaijan`s internationally recognized territorial integrity on April 6 and June 29, 2016.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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