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Azerbaijani MFA: Armenian FM has special phobia regarding substantive negotiations

27 March 2018 19:00 (UTC+04:00)
Azerbaijani MFA: Armenian FM has special phobia regarding substantive negotiations

By Rashid Shirinov

The Armenian Foreign Minister has a special phobia regarding substantive negotiations, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev said on March 27.

He was commenting on the recent statement of the Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian. “Apparently, he is seriously concerned about the substantive conduct of negotiations on a specific basis, which began in the autumn of 2017,” Hajiyev said.

He added that Armenia deliberately pursues a policy of negotiating for the sake of negotiations and imitating negotiations.

“Thus, Armenia pursues such a dirty goal as preserving the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and delaying the negotiation process,” Hajiyev mentioned. “Instead of putting an end to aggression, which is the fundamental basis of the conflict, and withdrawing Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, the military and political leadership of Armenia deliberately tries to focus attention on negotiations on technical, secondary issues.”

The spokesman also said that the creation of Armenia as a state on the ancestral lands of Azerbaijan is a historical fact.

“We would advise the military and political leadership of Armenia to check out the census conducted by Tsarist Russia in Yerevan at the beginning of the 19th century,” he noted.

Hajiyev also mentioned that for sustainable peace and security in the region, the Armenian leadership must recognize its responsibility for the acts committed against Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani people, comply with obligations it assumed under the UN Charter, norms and principles of international law, and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its occupying forces from the seized territories, as required by the UN Security Council resolutions.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region 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. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Until now, Armenia controls fifth part of Azerbaijan’s territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

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

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