Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

The main topic of discussions should be the attempts of the former military dictatorial regime of Sargsyan to create tensions and military clashes on the contact line between the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces in order to use this situation for political purposes within Armenia, Spokesman for Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend.

He was commenting on the meeting of Russian and Armenian foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov and Edward Nalbandian in Moscow on April 26.

Hajiyev noted that Azerbaijan is ready to negotiate on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with clear-headed political forces that will replace the military dictatorial regime of Sargsyan within the norms and principles of international law and relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

After Lavrov and Nalbandian’s meeting, Spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova noted that Russia sincerely hopes that after the stabilization of the internal situation in Armenia, the talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia will resume.

“We have repeatedly voiced our position on the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This is a matter of peaceful political negotiations and agreements, and complications in this matter should not occur in any way,” she said at a press conference.

The spokeswoman added that the way out should be exclusively in a peaceful negotiating framework.

Russia, along with the U.S. and France, is a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker peace to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

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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