Khazar Ibrahim: "We want the year of 2009 to be the year of the resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno Karabakh"

The external policy of 2009 remained transparent and had a tendency of deepening relations with all countries of the world, basing on national interests of Azerbaijan, said spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan Khazar Ibrahim.

According to him, the main priority for the country remained the resolution of the Karabakh conflict.

"In this direction we can note obvious progress. As is known, a resolution of the UN General Assembly, clearly fixing that the Karabakh conflict must be settled in the framework of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and stating the need of the immediate withdrawal of all Armenian armed forces from the occupied lands of our country, was adopted on March 14 of 2008.

Moreover, on November 2 the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia, signed a Moscow declaration, which also states that the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict must be settled in the framework of the international law and decisions and documents, adopted in these frames. Naturally that all documents state the priority of the resolution of the Karabakh conflict in the framework of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan", said Ibrahim.

He said along to it, another positive result of 2008 was the successful development of relations with all countries both inside and outside our region, with which our country have great mutual interests. The number of our diplomatic representations in the world has risen and the relations with such international organizations as UN, OIC, EU and OSCE have been developing successfully.

"Azerbaijan's contribution to the provision of peace and security in different countries of the world has also been successful which is proven by the multi-fold expansion of the Azerbaijani military contingent in Afghanistan and the support, provided by Azerbaijan to the countries, which sustained different disasters in the passing year.

Speaking about the position of official Baku on the expanding relations between Armenia and Turkey, he said Aezrbaijan does not interfere to the issue of relations between the countries.

"Even so more Turkey has repeatedly stated clearly that the Karabakh conflict must be settled in the framework of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, while the Armenian armed forces must be withdrawn from the occupied lands of our country.

As for the expectations about the year of 2009 in the sense of the Karabakh conflict, the spokesman noted: "Certainly, we would want the year of 2009 to become a year of the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. At least we plan to attain significant breakthrough in the negotiation process on its resolution.

But here most things would depend on the constructiveness of the Armenian party. Therefore, we will spare no efforts to close Armenia to adoption of constructive steps in the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. Here the role of the OSCE MG, which we expect to take definite steps to make the position of the Armenian party constructive, will be very important".

/Day.Az/