Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry has come out on the attack to dismiss criticism from Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elkhan Polukhov referred to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein as an example of what could happen to the leader of a country that invades another.
"Statements about the democratic development of the country sound at the very least cynical coming from the political leadership of Armenia, who are responsible for ethnic cleansing, terror, the barbaric treatment of servicemen’s bodies and cruelty towards civilians," Polukhov told Day.Az.
He was responding to criticism of Azerbaijan made by Serzh Sargsyan at a meeting with journalists from the Armenian diaspora yesterday.
Sargsyan said that "anti-Armenian fascism is gaining momentum in Azerbaijan; it is being executed deliberately and at the highest level".
Polukhov responded: "Unfortunately, the Armenian leadership is unable to distinguish today’s realities and is trying through different types of insinuation to legitimize the ethnic cleansing and occupying policy that it is conducting against Azerbaijan. It seems that the Armenian leadership does not understand or accept the essence of the Helsinki Final Act, or the essence of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, which clearly recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Should we list the great number of international documents and statements that support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan? The Armenian side knows them all well."
"Unfortunately, the Armenian side does not understand that the world has long since distanced itself from the definitions the Armenian leadership is attempting to use. The mere statement that there has never been a case in the world of the losing party dictating terms to the winner costs much," he said. He was referring to Sargsyan's comment that "defeated aggressors", as the Armenian president termed Azerbaijan, do not dictate terms to the winner.
"The Armenian president seems to have forgotten what happened to Saddam Hussein who also turned his back on reality when he went to occupy Kuwait. Everyone knows what became of that warrior," the spokesman said.
"Today the world has no other point of view than recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and this is just a matter of time. Therefore, the Armenian leadership should better prepare its people and the diaspora for the inevitable. As for the right to self-determination, the Azerbaijani side stated and states that it recognizes the right of the Azerbaijani and Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination within the framework of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan which complies with the norms of international law," Polukhov said.
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