Azerbaijan summons Russian envoy over separatist regime reps' visit to Moscow

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned the Russian Ambassador to the country over the recent visit made to Moscow by representatives of separatist Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Ambassador Mikhail Bocharnikov was received by Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov on November 6 and handed over Azerbaijan’s protest note, according to the information posted on the Foreign Ministry’s official website.

The note was issued with regard to the visit of Masis Mayilyan and Lernik Hovhannisyan, the so-called representatives of the illegal regime created in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region currently occupied by Armenia.

Masis Mayilyan and Lernik Hovhannisyan visited the Russian capital on November 3 where they met with leaders and representatives of a number of Russian experts and representatives of academic centers.

As note says, such visits serve to Armenia’s attempts to continue the occupation of the Azerbaijani territories and to consolidate status quo in the occupied territories. This policy has been pursued by Yerevan for almost 30 years now. The Ministry emphasized that such visits are provocative and undermine Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"They undermine the negotiation process and the spirit of sincerity and high trust between Azerbaijan and Russia. Furthermore, they aren’t in line with provisions of the Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Security between Azerbaijan and Russia dated July 3, 1997," the protest note reads.

Although Russia has declared numerous times that such visit carry private nature, the "representatives" of illegal "authorities" in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan “continue to use the Russian territory to consolidate the consequences of the aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan,” the note reads.

At the same time, it was noted that the entry of "representatives" of the illegal entity into the territory of Russia doesn’t correspond to Moscow’s commitments as an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair that mediates the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and also as the permanent member of the UN Security Council, which supported its resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 adopted in 1993.

As was underlined in the note, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs’ mission is to promote an impartial approach to all issues related to the peaceful settlement of the conflict.

With this regard, Azerbaijan expects Russian to take all the necessary measures to prevent such illegal visits.

In turn, Ambassador Bocharnikov stressed that Russia's position on the Karabakh conflict is well-known and unchanged, adding that the visit of representatives by unrecognized entities doesn’t reflect Moscow’s official position.

Earlier, Baku summoned U.S. Ambassador in Azerbaijan Earle Litzenberger to hand him a protest note over the visit of Mayilian to the U.S. on October 29.