Azernews.Az

BAKU – Slovakia’s foreign ministry has dismissed reports about a visit by a so-called delegation of businessmen from Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic to the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh, the Slovakian embassy in Russia said.

The embassy said in a statement that the visit, organized by ethnic Armenian Slovak businessman Ashot Grigorian, was exclusively his own initiative. It thereby dismissed Grigorian’s claims made in Yerevan in early February about the visit being an official one and Slovakian Eximbanka’s co-financing projects in Nagorno Karabakh.

The statement said Slovakia’s stance on the Karabakh conflict remains unchanged. The country supports a settlement of the dispute in line with international law and UN resolutions within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity.

Grigorian, the Armenian-born owner of a Slovak energy-consulting firm, claimed at a news conference on February 4 that the European entrepreneurs were interested in the Azerbaijani rebel region’s energy, construction, and agricultural sectors and that they would like to start out with pilot projects worth a total of at least $15 million.

The businessmen allegedly plan to build a cascade of hydroelectric stations. Under that program, the separatist regime plans to stop importing electricity from Armenia in 2012 and be able to export power generated by rivers in the following years.

Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a brutal war that claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. The hostilities, which flared up due to Armenia’s territorial claims, ended with the signing of a fragile cease-fire in 1994. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, has been under the occupation of the Armenian armed forces since then. The separatist regime in Nagorno Karabakh declared so-called independence in 1991, which has not been recognized by the world community.