UK rules out recognition of separatist Nagorno-Karabakh

/By AzerNews/

By Sara Rajabova

Great Britain doesn’t recognize the so-called regime of Nagorno-Karabakh and has no contact with it at an official level.

Irfan Siddig, British ambassador to Azerbaijan made the remark at a press conference in Baku on June 2, commenting on reports that Bako Sahakyan, the head of the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh, which remains under Armenian occupation, intends to visit the United Kingdom.

"If a citizen has a valid passport, we have no right to refuse him entry into the country," Siddig said.

The diplomat also added that if such a visit does indeed take place, no meeting at any state level will be held with representatives of the separatist regime.

Earlier, Azerbaijan voiced its objection over the visit of representatives of the separatist regime to France.

Baku sent a protest note to France in connection with the visit of the head of the separatist regime in Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region to France.

Paris, in turn, ruled out recognizing the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh, established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

Armenia has not yet implemented any of the four U.N. Security Council resolutions provisioning its pullout from neighboring country's territories.