Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said no progress has been achieved in settling the country’s long-standing conflict with Armenia over Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh, AzerTaj state news agency reported.

Addressing the summit of Turkic countries’ leaders in Istanbul Thursday, President Aliyev once again stressed that Nagorno Karabakh is Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory.

"Nagorno Karabakh is Azerbaijan's historical and indigenous land. The Azerbaijani people have lived and created in these lands for centuries. Azerbaijan's territorial integrity is recognized by the international community. The territorial integrity must be restored. And we want to make it happen swiftly, through negotiations and by peaceful means."

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a cease-fire in 1994, but Armenia continues to occupy Nagorno Karabakh and seven adjacent Azerbaijani districts in defiance of international law. Though the separatist regime in Nagorno Karabakh declared so-called independence at the time of the Soviet collapse in 1991, this "independence" has not been recognized by the world community.

President Aliyev said nations’ aspirations to self-determination cannot violate a country’s territorial integrity, i.e. the two notions should not be contradictory.

"International experience and international law support this position. The Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh and the Azerbaijanis who will return there should live based on the principles stipulating the opportunities of high self-determination [status]. These are the regulations of international law. And these are the rules of normal and humane treatment."

Up to a million Azerbaijanis were ousted from their homes during the war fought with Armenia in the early 1990s.

Aliyev reminded that the Zangazur region was transferred to Armenia in 1920.

"In the past, Zangazur, an ancient and inseparable land of the Turkic world, was broken off Azerbaijan and handed over to Armenia, resulting in severing the geographic link within the Turkic world. If we look at the map, we will see that if this historic injustice had not occurred, the united Turkic world would live today in a geographic sense as well.

"However, we are not linked by geogrpahic locations alone. What unites us is our relations, brotherhood and our common past," the Azerbaijani leader said.

Meanwhile, Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian told Ukraine’s "Segodnya" ("Today") news portal that Yerevan "still hopes" for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and "is not contemplating other steps".

Nalbandian was asked by a journalist about the prospect of Armenia’s recognizing Georgia's rebel Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions, which could allegedly facilitate recognition of the so-called independence of the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh republic. The minister replied: "We think there is no need to take other steps in this direction. We have not yet recognized the independence of Nagorno Karabakh and, without that, we can’t recognize Kosovo, which is entitled to independence, or others [other rebel regions] of this type, either."

Nalbandian claimed that if the ongoing talks with Azerbaijan yield no fruit and "Baku’s persistent war threats cause any disputations", a need will arise "to take other steps’.