Azernews.Az

Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian has accused Azerbaijan of "distorting" the gist of the ongoing talks to settle the long-standing Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh.
"Azerbaijan is distorting not only the actual causes and outcomes of the Upper Garabagh conflict, but also the essence of the current stage of negotiations on the conflict settlement," he claimed at a meeting of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers in Strasbourg, the Armenian ministry said.
Nalbandian said the statement adopted at an OSCE ministerial in Athens in late 2009 says that non-use of force, the right of nations to self-determination and the territorial integrity of states should be the guidelines for a conflict settlement.
"Azerbaijan had denied the existence of such a document for over a year and, further, Baku stated it was accepting this document with some amendments. Moreover, the Azerbaijani side is distorting the gist of peace talks and misses no opportunity to make statements about using force," Nalbandian alleged.
Armenia has had territorial claims against Azerbaijan, a South Caucasus neighbor, since the early 1990s. The country’s armed forces have been occupying over 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s internationally-recognized territory, defying international law. Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly warned against Yerevan’s policy of aggression, saying the country’s land will be freed at any cost.
He also said Azerbaijan had repeatedly attempted to shift the negotiating process to other international organizations.
"It is clearly seen that all of the Azerbaijani side’s attempts to have the problem considered in other international institutions in order to influence the course of negotiations underway within the Minsk Group are destructive," Nalbandian maintained.*