Karabakh's Azerbaijani community slams Armenian provocation in occupied Shusha

By Azernews

By Akbar Mammadov

Head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Azerbaijani community Tural Ganjaliyev has described as a provocation the holding of so called “inauguration" ceremony in occupied Shusha on May 21 following the illegal elections held in Azerbaijan’s occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region.

In an interview with Trend news agency, Ganjaliyev stressed that this so-called ceremony is a provocation act aimed at disrupting the negotiations process.

“The Armenian government regularly commits such provocative acts, and the selection of the occupied city of Shusha for this so-called event clearly demonstrates it”, he added.

In addition, the head of the Azerbaijani community touched upon the illegal visit of Armenian Prime Minister to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan on 9 May.

“As if all this were not enough, Armenian Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan’s illegal visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and his personal participation in this provocation, which damages the negotiations, shows that the Armenian leadership's talk of peace is just hypocrisy,” Ganjaliyev said.

He also noted that this step taken by Armenia is an insult to the Azerbaijani IDPs who have been subjected to ethnic cleansing from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

“It is a blow to the process of peaceful settlement of the conflict and completely contradicts the intention to "prepare the peoples for peace" stated at the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in January 2019”, Ganjaliyev added.

He reminded that Azerbaijan is taking ongoing and constructive steps towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict while Armenia resorts to provocations in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan arising anger and disgust.

Furthermore, Ganjaliyev emphasized that this provocation gives grounds to say that the Armenian government is not interested in a peaceful solution to the conflict and serves to aggravate the situation in the region.

Ganjaliyev urged the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairs to condemn Armenia’s provocation.

He reminded that the illegal elections held in Nagorno-Karabakh on March 31 have been condemned by the entire international community and its results have no legitimacy.

He also reiterated Azerbaijan’s position that the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict can be resolved by the withdrawal of the occupying Armenian army from Azerbaijani territories, the dignified return of all Azerbaijani IDPs to their ancestral lands and in the framework of the internationally recognized territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.