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Azerbaijani and Armenian lawmakers faced a tense dispute at a meeting of a panel of the Euronest parliamentary assembly, the European Union’s Eastern Partnership program, in Yerevan on Wednesday, Armenian media reported.

Tensions escalated after a speech by Azerbaijani MP Azay Guliyev, who stressed that Armenia occupies a part of Azerbaijan’s territory and a million Azerbaijanis were displaced during the brutal war in the early 1990s. Addressing the Euronest social affairs committee, Guliyev also spoke of the damage inflicted to his country by the Karabakh war and Yerevan’s non-constructive stance in the ongoing OSCE-brokered peace talks. Guliyev said that if Armenia relinquishes its policy of occupying the neighboring South Caucasus republic’s land, Azerbaijan could establish cultural and humanitarian cooperation with this Eastern Partnership member state. The MP also did not rule out cooperation in implementing the Nabucco pipeline project, which seeks to supply Azerbaijani gas to Europe, but reiterated that this is possible only after the occupied Azerbaijani territories are freed.

Guliyev’s statement angered the Armenian MPs, who claimed that the OSCE Minsk Group -- co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France – is dealing with the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, and the issue is outside Euronest’s jurisdiction.

The two countries’ MPs were appeased only after interference by the meeting organizers.

Azay Guliyev and two other Azerbaijani parliament members, Rovshan Rzayev and Faraj Guliyev, have been on a visit to Armenia since Tuesday to attend the Euronest meeting.

This story is published by AzerNEWS Weekly under a project funded by the Foundation for State Assistance to the Development of the Media under the President of the Azerbaijan Republic.