Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

An Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry official criticized the Armenian president for blaming Azerbaijan for the tensions on the frontline.

The statements about peace and moral and ethical values made by the Armenian leadership that has committed the gravest crimes and ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijani people and was directly involved in committing the Khojaly genocide is an example of extreme hypocrisy, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev said on February 17.

Abdullayev's comments came after the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan blamed Azerbaijan for what is happening on the frontline at the Yerkrapah Volunteer Union Congress on February 15.

Abdullayev said the Armenian leadership that has committed ethnic cleansing against all the peoples living in Armenia, as well as bloody purges in Azerbaijan's occupied territories has no moral right to raise charges against Azerbaijan.

"Was it not Sargsyan and his predecessor Robert Kocharian who spoke about 'ethnic disparity'? Was it not Sargsyan who incited young people to pay attention to the neighboring states' territories and wage bloody wars in the future to create a 'Greater Armenia'? As a result of this policy of racism and hatred against other nations, Armenia has become a mono-ethnic state," Abdullayev said.

He noted that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forced to leave the country due to the policies of the Armenian leadership which so persistently speaks about "freedom" and "patriotism".

"As the Armenian public figures have stressed, the Armenian government is committing a 'white genocide' against its own people, and is therefore responsible for the fact that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were forced to leave the country and live in other countries as immigrants," Abdullayev said.

He went on to note that the Armenian leadership, headed by Sargsyan, should pay attention to the Armenian population, 40 percent of which live in extreme poverty, instead of making anti-Azerbaijani and racist comments.

Abdullayev said the Azerbaijani people, unlike Armenians, have maintained their tradition of multiculturalism and tolerance, and Azerbaijan is perceived as a model of tolerance today.

"The fact that many peoples, including Armenians, are living in Azerbaijan and are able to benefit from Azerbaijan's development, shows the high moral qualities of the Azerbaijani people. But Sargsyan should not forget that Azerbaijan will never stand the creation of a second Armenian state on its territories, sooner or later the occupied lands will be liberated and Azerbaijan will have its territorial security and sovereignty and the inviolability of its borders," Abdullayev said.

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 were displaced as a result of the war.

Large-scale hostilities ended with a Russia-brokered ceasefire in 1994 but Armenia 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.