A senior Azerbaijani official has said that the international community does not put enough pressure on Armenia over Karabakh peace talks.
Novruz Mammadov, head of the foreign relations department at the Presidential Administration, said on Tuesday that Armenia hampers the peace process.
"Armenia tries to complicate the negotiating process to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and constantly disrupts peace initiatives of the intermediaries. And now unfortunately, the big states supporting mediation don’t put enough pressure on Armenia," he said.
France, Russia and the USA, as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, lead negotiations to resolve the Karabakh conflict.
“But the question is why are they not forcing Armenia to submit to their own international documents and laws? All international organizations and states recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. However, the point is that today we have a right to expect the West to take a just position on this issue since the West positions itself as an advocate of justice. But unfortunately, it leaves many questions unanswered," Mammadov said.
"We would like to know the reason for all of this. Armenia uses this situation constantly to protract the negotiating process. If these organizations aim to provide security and cooperation, then let them make a statement concerning the continuing 20 year occupation of Azerbaijani territories. But they don’t make such statements and this makes us concerned."
"Armenia constantly avoids negotiating," he said citing the resignation of President Ter-Petrosyan and the shootings in the Armenian parliament among the pretexts to avoid talks.
However, Armenia has been avoiding talks as recently as this year, Mammadov said.
"Let me remind you for the umpteenth time that as soon as the slightest chance arises of making progress in settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian leaders immediately bring into play their tricks to disrupt the negotiations. That is, we are already familiar with these tricks of Armenia and the hypocrisy of its leaders. Therefore, we want the co-chairs and representatives of other organizations to show a just position on the regulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The co-chair countries should think about why their steps don’t work on little Armenia. That’s what they should think about.”
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