Azernews.Az

BAKU – A well-known Armenian journalist has said Azerbaijan should "consider its own" the population of Nagorno Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians that has been occupied since a war in the early 1990s.

"The Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh wants to hear that Azerbaijan does not see them as enemies," Alexei Manvelyan said on Iran’s Sahar TV channel. "Karabakh Armenians have to know that they are deemed as ‘their own people’ by the other side."

The statement came ahead of the Russian-brokered meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents due on June 25.

The separatist regime in Nagorno Karabakh held an illegal referendum in 1991 with the participation of only Armenian residents. The voters supported so-called independence of the region, which has not been recognized by the international community.

Azerbaijani lawmaker Mubariz Gurbanly says Manvelyan’s statement indicates a drastic change in public sentiments over the Karabakh problem in Armenia. Notably, the Armenian people suffering from a dire crisis can no longer withhold their anger over the ruling elite’s failure to resolve the long-standing conflict, he said.

"Such statements show that the Armenians who live in Nagorno Karabakh.. are discontent with the government in Yerevan. The social and economic… needs of Nagorno Karabakh’s Armenians, who are citizens of Azerbaijan, could be met better by Baku than Yerevan, because Armenia is currently faced with an economic recession, and an exodus from the country is underway; unemployment is rife there as well."

About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and seven surrounding regions, has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since the Karabakh war.

The status of the Nagorno Karabakh region has been a stumbling block in the ongoing peace talks. Baku says the occupied districts must be freed and the displaced Azerbaijanis returned home, and only after that could the region’s status be determined within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, while Armenia insists that self-determination is the core principle for a settlement of the dispute.