Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Baku was surprised at the reaction of the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry to the statements voiced by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the 6th congress of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on February 16.

"Taking into account the relations of strategic partnership and the high-level dialogue between Azerbaijan and Russia, we consider such attitude to the president’s statements as improper," he said.

Hajiyev stressed that the policy pursued by President Aliyev serves to ensure peace and security in the region, strengthen regional cooperation and eliminate potential regional risks.

"At the sixth congress of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party, President Aliyev spoke about the return of Azerbaijanis to their historical lands, rather than about the return of Azerbaijani historical lands," the spokesman said, noting that the president’s statement was spread in media in various languages, including a full translation into Russian.

Hajiyev said that when commenting on the issues, it is necessary to know precisely their essence, not to take them out of context, and to refer not to the targeted distortions of Armenian media and Armenian politicians, but directly to the primary authentic source.

The spokesman further noted that the forced mass expulsion of Azerbaijanis from Armenia, the destruction of the material and cultural heritage belonging to the indigenous Azerbaijani population in Armenia in various stages of history, including in the late 1980s, are historical facts confirmed by documents.

"In general, why should anyone be concerned about the peaceful return of the Azerbaijani people to their historical lands? In all documents of the relevant international organizations on the settlement of various conflicts, including the UN and the OSCE, the return of people to their native lands, places of permanent residence is ensured as one of the fundamental rights," Hajiyev mentioned.

The spokesman noted that according to the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, one of the important components of the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is ensuring the return of more than one million Azerbaijanis subjected to bloody ethnic cleansing to their historical lands.

Hajiyev stressed that the continuation of occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and seven adjacent regions by Armenia by using the military force, territorial claims to Azerbaijan and other neighboring states seriously threaten peace and security in the region and exacerbate the situation.

"By grossly violating international humanitarian law, Armenia intentionally accommodates ethnic Armenians from Syria in the occupied Azerbaijani territories,” he said. “While making public statements, the Armenian political leadership voices claims related to Nakhchivan and other territories of Azerbaijan.”

Hajiyev added that while addressing the Armenian youth, the political leadership of Armenia speaks about young people’s participation in future wars for grabbing new lands for the sake of ​​the so-called Great Armenia.

“The Armenian constitution reflects open territorial claims to another neighboring country. Armenia has also territorial claims to all its neighbors on the basis of the contradictory mythical ideology of "Armenian Highland,” the spokesman said.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan by laying territorial claims on the country. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

To this day, Armenia has not implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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