The Azerbaijani president has used a press conference in Estonia to accuse Armenia of dragging out settlement of the Karabakh conflict.
The Azerbaijani president met his Estonian counterpart, Toomas Ilves, in Tallinn yesterday, and told a joint press conference after their meeting that he had updated Ilves on the state of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process.
'The fact that our land has been occupied for almost 20 years shows that, notwithstanding all our efforts for a peaceful resolution of the conflict on the basis of internationally recognized norms and UN Security Council resolutions, Armenia’s ongoing non-constructive position and its policy of dragging out the peace process create more obstacles to a conflict settlement,' Aliyev said in hisopening statement to the press conference, as reported by state-run news agency AzerTAj.
Referring to a settlement proposal by the OSCE Minsk Group mediators, the president said: 'The parties acting as mediators in the process, i.e., the co-chairmen of the Minsk Group, presented to both sides a proposal to settle the conflict. The proposal is based on internationally recognized norms and the resolutions and decisions of international organizations. Overall, Azerbaijan officially and openly accepted the proposal, with some small exceptions, three months ago. However, unfortunately, we have not seen the same approach from the Armenian side. Azerbaijan is ready to move forward with the proposal, but we have not seen an appropriate response from the Armenian side. This only increases our suspicions that Armenia simply intends to maintain the status quo, does not want to withdraw its troops from the occupied territories, wishes to drag out the process and at a certain point prefers to avoid it.'
Ilham Aliyev went on to call for pressure to be brought to bear on Armenia to withdraw from Azerbaijan.
'I think that the international community and circles involved in the issue, including European institutions, should step up their efforts to convince Armenia, which is illegally occupying 20 percent of the land of a sovereign country, to eliminate the consequences of the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis and allow one million Azerbaijani refugees and forced migrants to return home and put an end to the occupation. After this, peace can be established in the region.'
The OSCE mediators have put forward proposals for a Karabakh settlement known as the updated Madrid principles.
Azerbaijan's foreign minister, Elmar Mammadyarov, said earlier in March that Baku accepted the updated principles in general, but 'there are elements that do not suit us'.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said on 29 March that Armenia had adopted the OSCE's Madrid principles as a basis for negotiations two years ago, and the updated principles remained the same.
The Madrid principles include the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijani control, an interim status for Karabakh providing guarantees for security and self-governance, and the future determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh through a legally binding expression of will. The status of Karabakh remains the biggest sticking point in the negotiations.
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