Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Armenia distorts international principles and tries to mislead the international community, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev has said. He was commenting on Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan's statement voiced at the UN General Assembly.

Nalbandyan had claimed that Azerbaijan's accumulation of a large number of offensive weapons threatens to destabilize not only the region but also the international situation.

Abdullayev said the continued occupation of Azerbaijani territories threatens the destabilization of peace in the region, calling Nalbandyan's statement as nothing but insolence.

According to him, Azerbaijan with its occupied territory must strengthen its military power.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.