Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry official has said that the delegation of the California state of the US is planning to visit the occupied territory of Azerbaijan.

According to Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev, the list of those who plan to visit the occupied territory of Azerbaijan, mainly include the names of the representatives of the radical circles of the Armenian lobby.

Abdullayev said "this once again confirms that some of the people visiting the occupied territory of Azerbaijan are Armenians and the other part is the deceived people."

"Member of the Los-Angeles city council Bob Blumenfield, who also is in the list, addressed to the Consulate General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles for permission to visit the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. With regard to other persons of the list, the Azerbaijani side stands on its principled position and states that without applying for the permission to visit the occupied Azerbaijani lands, they will be included to the black list," Abdullayev said.

Recently, Armenian media reported that a delegation of Californian officials and representatives from the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) are expected to visit Nagorno-Karabakh.

Commenting on the reports, the U.S. embassy in Baku said the Obama administration has nothing to do with the planned visit to the region by Californian officials.

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry last month released a list of foreigners blacklisted for visiting Nagorno-Karabakh without Baku's permission.Abdullayev said such visits are illegal and damaging to peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Armenia captured Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts from Azerbaijan in a war that followed the Soviet breakup in 1991. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and nearly 1 million displaced by the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia has continued the occupation in defiance of four UN Security Council resolutions calling for immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

Peace talks mediated by Russia, France and the US have produced no results so far.