Azernews.Az

A senior Azerbaijani official has said any activity aimed at changing the infrastructure in the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani territories is illegal.

"From this point of view, the construction of any road in the Kalbajar region and other initiatives contradict the Geneva convention," Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov told journalists on Friday.

Azimov said it was not the first instance of Armenia’s violating international conventions.

"However, the Armenian leadership should know that it will be held responsible for all of its actions," Azimov said.

A new highway is being built from Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno Karabakh region to Armenia. The road will reportedly stretch from the Armenia-occupied parts of the Goranboy region to Armenia through the center of the Kalbajar region.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war that ended with the signing of a precarious cease-fire in 1994. Armenian armed forces have since occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, defying international calls and UN resolutions. OSCE-brokered peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.

Regarding the Russian-brokered talks between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents held in June, Azimov said Armenian leaders’ claims that Azerbaijan is to blame for the fruitless outcome of the meeting have no merit and aim to "divert attention from the truth".

President Dmitry Medvedev hosted his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan, in the Volga city of Kazan, the ninth in a series of trilateral meetings on the Karabakh conflict. The leaders of the mediating countries – the United States, Russia and France - had urged to finalize a roadmap of a peace agreement during the Kazan summit. But such a document was not signed, and the parties even traded accusations after the meeting.

Azimov said that in January 2010 the Armenian president rejected the updated version of the Madrid principles, a peace outline proposed by the mediating OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

"Afterwards, one of the co-chairs made some proposals on his own initiative. And since the proposals were not appropriate, the Azerbaijani side did not accept them."

The Madrid principles, known as Basic Principles or the Madrid Document, lie at the core of the ongoing peace talks between Baku and Yerevan. The peace outline was initially proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs in 2007 and further updated in 2009.

The Basic Principles include the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; determining the legal status of Nagorno Karabakh; a corridor linking Armenia to the region; and the right of Azerbaijani IDPs and refugees to return home.