EU rep hails Azerbaijani president’s pro-peace statements

By Azernews

By Vugar Khalilov

EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar has welcomed the pro-peace statements made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the IX Global Baku Forum, Azernews reports.

"Pleased to read President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev’s statement at Global Baku Forum: `Now it’s time to establish peace, to establish cooperation' and to `move to practical implementation' following positive dynamics with Armenia. The EU strongly supports this", Klaar wrote on his Twitter account.

It should be noted that in his opening remarks at the IX Global Baku Forum, Aliyev stressed that the resolution of the Karabakh conflict is “an opportunity” for regional security and for peace.

He underlined that after defeating “the aggressor” and restoring the historical justice Azerbaijan is seeking peace, stability, and sustainable development in the South Caucasus.

“It’s a unique opportunity. Southern Caucasus was disintegrated throughout the years of independence of the three countries of Southern Caucasus. For thirty years it was disintegrated because of the Armenian occupation. So, now it’s time to establish peace, establish cooperation. And Azerbaijan is working on that. With respect to the process of normalization of relations with Armenia, we suggested, it was our proposal to start working on a peace agreement,” Aliyev stressed.

The president recalled that Azerbaijan proposed five basic principles of international law, including mutual respect for and recognition of both countries' territorial integrity, mutual refrain from making any territorial claims now or in the future, and other principles that comprise the bulk of the proposal.

“We were glad to see that the Armenian government accepted these five principles. So this is a positive dynamic but now we need to move to practical implementation. Because we know from the history of times of occupation when we were negotiating that sometimes words even on high-level articulated by Armenian officials do not mean a lot. Because we need steps,” Aliyev added.