Azernews.Az

BAKU – The European Union recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and this position remains unchanged, the EU special envoy to South Caucasus Peter Semneby said in Baku Sunday while commenting on the recent controversy over the removal of relevant remarks by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso from the EC website.

Semneby said the goal of his visit to Azerbaijan was to discuss the situation that has emerged following Barroso’s visit to the country.

"There is no need to embellish the issue," Semneby said. "The website contains the initial version of the speech. President Barroso had decided to add his views about Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity to that version."

Following talks with President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on January 13, Barroso said concerning the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh that the EU "of course supports the principle of territorial integrity of its partners including Azerbaijan". But these parts of his speech were subsequently removed from the EC’s website and replaced with other remarks. Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said such an instance was disappointing and could question the country’s relations with the EU.

The outcomes of Barroso’s visit topped the agenda of the EU envoy’s meeting with President Aliyev on Monday. The parties stressed the importance of the visit for developing EU-Azerbaijan relations and discussed prospects for further cooperation, the Azerbaijani president’s press-service said.

Discussions also centered on the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

Semneby told reporters after the meeting that the EU was concerned over intensifying ceasefire violations on the "contact line" of the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops and that the issue had been discussed with President Aliyev.

"Every such incident indicates the need for redoubling efforts for a settlement of the conflict," Semneby said.

He added that the truce that is in force between the two countries should be reinforced until a final solution is found to the long-standing dispute.

Last Thursday, an Armenian soldier was killed and an Azerbaijani officer wounded in a clash on the frontline, reports say.

"The defense ministry" of the self-proclaimed republic operating in Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh region was quoted by Armenia Today news agency as saying that Azerbaijani armed forces had violated the ceasefire, killing an Armenian soldier, while Azerbaijan sustained many more casualties. But Azerbaijani Defense Ministry deputy spokesman Teymur Abdullayev said that it was the Armenian troops that breached the ceasefire, wounding 24-year-old Azerbaijani officer Shamil Sadygov, and the shooting ceased after a tough retaliation from Azerbaijani troops.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict for two decades. Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory since a war in the early 1990s. The ceasefire accord has been in place since 1994, but years of OSCE-brokered peace talks have been largely fruitless.