Azernews.Az

The Russian parliamentary newspaper has removed excerpts from the Prime Minister of the so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" Arayik Harutyunyan's interview given to Reuters from its official website.

The Russian newspaper recently published excerpts from Harutyunyan's interview given to Reuters, in which Nagorno-Karabakh has been represented as an independent state.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on Tuesday expressed concern over the official publication of information where Nagorno-Karabakh has been represented as an independent state.

The ministry's spokesman Elman Abdullayev said in an interview with the media that the Azerbaijani embassy in Russia will receive detailed guidelines for the proper reaction to these publications in the newspaper.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 over Armenia's territorial claims against Azerbaijan. The ensuing war that displaced up to a million Azerbaijanis concluded with the signing of a fragile ceasefire in 1994. Armenia has occupied about 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory since the war, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region, despite the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions urging its pullout. Peace talks have been largely fruitless so far.