Azernews.Az

BAKU – Iran sees a settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict "on the regional level" and could make an effort to achieve this goal if such appeals are made, the country’s parliament speaker said on a visit to Azerbaijan last week.

Ali Larijani told a news conference in Baku on Saturday that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict must be resolved within Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity through negotiations and with the involvement of the regional countries.

"We beware of major forces’ actions in the region," he said. "Superpowers consider only their own interests, and instead of solving the problem, they are playing a game for the sake of their interests."

20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and seven adjacent districts, has been under Armenian occupation for nearly two decades. OSCE-brokered peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.

Larijani said the OSCE Minsk Group, a team of diplomats from the United States, Russia and France brokering the peace process, has failed to achieve a result despite its long-lasting efforts.

"We prefer regional attempts in the solution of this problem," the Iranian speaker said.

Larijani also stated Tehran’s stance on the prospect of stationing international peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh, saying that the presence of peacekeeping forces would further complicate the conflict.

"Some superpowers use international groups as a tool, therefore, it is not known what the future holds if international peacekeeping forces are stationed in the region," he commented. "If international organizations and bodies were indeed independent and were not a puppet in someone’s hands, stationing peacekeepers could be one of the ways to settle the conflict. But at this point we are not witnessing independence of international organizations, and sometimes they further complicate existing problems. It is therefore necessary to create suitable conditions to avail of different options for a [conflict] settlement."

Larijani criticized the US policy on international issues.

"The United States’ entry to the region would not solve the problem, but, to the contrary, would create new problems. After the US incursions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the amount of smuggling and terror there had further increased, and on the Palestine problem, they keep coming up with new solutions, thus causing it to drag on."