Azernews.Az

Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov has said Azerbaijan will not change its strategy on settling its long-standing conflict with Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh, speaking of the ongoing OSCE-brokered peace talks and Baku’s overall foreign policy at a Washington-based think-tank.

Addressing the Atlantic Council on Thursday, Azimov expressed disappointment that efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group, an organization co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France brokering the peace process, which was established nearly 20 years ago, have been fruitless so far. But Azimov added that he sees no need for altering the current format of negotiations.

The Minsk Group has been mediating peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia since the two South Caucasus republics signed a precarious cease-fire following a lengthy war in the early 1990s.

The deputy minister also touched on Iran’s proposal to mediate Karabakh settlement talks, criticizing Tehran’s cooperation with Armenia.
"Iran is our neighbor. We have an impression that Iran sometimes maintains economic cooperation with Armenia even more actively [than it does with] Azerbaijan. According to incoming information, in some cases this cooperation even reaches the level of potentially supporting the occupation of our territories [by Armenian armed forces]."

About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including the Nagorno Karabakh region, has been under the occupation of Armenian armed forces since the 1994 ceasefire.