Today.Az » Politics » FM spokesman: There is a need for applying international pressure on Armenia
27 December 2013 [14:48] - Today.Az


By AzerNews

The world community should continue applying pressure on Armenia which has kept the Azerbaijani territories under occupation for over 20 years.

The remarks were made by Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev.

Abdullayev told AzerNews that the continuation of Armenia's non-constructive position seriously hinders the process of solving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"If Armenia's non-constructive position continues, the resolution of the conflict will be difficult, and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs also acknowledge it," he stressed.

Azerbaijan made a number of interesting initiatives during the process of conflict resolution and expects constructivism from Armenia, he said.

"They include achieving a comprehensive peace agreement and implementing a step-by-step resolution of the conflict on its basis, which implies the withdrawal of armed forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories, restoration of communications, restoration of the borders, repatriation of refugees and internally displaced persons to their historic lands, etc," he said.

Azerbaijan has made specific proposals and the position of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs on this issue is known, he noted.

"In their statements made in L'Aquila, Muskoka, Deauville, and Enniskillen the co-chair countries' presidents clearly underlined that the status-quo of the conflict is unacceptable and should be changed. Today, the main direction of the co-chairs' activity is unequivocally the continuation of negotiations with Azerbaijan and Armenia to change the status quo," Abdullayev said.

He went on to say that the co-chairs and the world community should continue applying pressure on Armenia, because Armenia's non-constructive position, lack of respect for the norms and principles of international law, and occupation and aggressive policy unequivocally poses a threat for the region's security and paves the way for a very dangerous trend.

"Azerbaijan is ready for continuing the negotiation process by diplomatic and political means and believes that diplomatic means have not been exhausted yet," Abdullayev said.

Azerbaijan is quite different now and the co-chairs and Armenia admit that such aggressive policy against a strong and developing Azerbaijan cannot continue anymore and should come to a stop, Abdullayev believes.

"There is a need for applying international pressure on Armenia, because it deals with violation of the norms and principles of the international law, international humanitarian law, and rights of over one million people," Abdullayev said.

Nagorno-Karabakh is an integral part of Azerbaijan and two communities live there, he underscored. Both communities are interested in the settlement of the conflict and relationships should be established between them, he said.

He was commenting on a recent statement by Igor Popov, an OSCE MG co-chair from Russia, who stressed the necessity of returning Nagorno-Karabakh to the negotiations table at a certain phase.

"Unfortunately, the representatives of one of these communities have been driven out by Armenia. It is necessary to enable the two communities to get in touch with each other," he added.

Abdullayev noted that talks over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict solution is held between the two countries, which are the two sides of the conflict. "The two sides of negotiations are Azerbaijan and Armenia," he said. "The restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty stands on the basis of negotiations."

He said Azerbaijan favors these meetings, but they should not be conducted for the sake of meeting.

Abdullayev also added that Azerbaijan expects concrete results from negotiations and the main goal in this regard is the restoration of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and borders.

He stressed that Azerbaijan's stance on this issue remains unchanged and concrete.

Abdullayev said Yerevan should admit that it has no other way except to return Azerbaijan's ancestral lands.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

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