Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijan`s expectations from the upcoming presidential talks on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict are that Yerevan will relinquish its non-constructive position, Presidential Administration official Elnur Aslanov has said.

The Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders will hold talks on Saturday with President Dmitry Medvedev’s mediation in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi. This will be the eighth such meeting to be held in the tripartite format.

Aslanov told reporters that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s stance is that peace talks should be continued, but "this has limits". "When this limit is reached, it will be our right and duty to seek alternative ways [of conflict settlement]," he said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a cease-fire in 1994. Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory since then. Years of OSCE-brokered peace talks have been largely fruitless. Azerbaijani officials have repeatedly warned that the country’s occupied territories will be freed at any cost.

Aslanov said further that Baku is not satisfied with the statements on the Karabakh conflict being made by international groups.

"We want international organizations to put forward their political will, to prompt Armenia -- by pressure and other means -- to vacate Azerbaijani lands."

Aslanov said it is time for the Armenian leaders to contemplate their country’s development.

"Azerbaijan’s development while Armenia’s falling into a recession by the day shows that there will come a time when the Armenians will have to sign a peace accord with Azerbaijan," he added.

The status of the Nagorno Karabakh region has been a stumbling block in peace talks. Baku says the occupied districts must be freed and Azerbaijani refugees returned home, and only after that could the status of Nagorno Karabakh be determined within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while Armenia insists that self-determination is the core principle for a settlement of the dispute. The mediators are seeking a solution leaning simultaneously on both principles.