“Nagorno Karabakh conflict is still posing a great threat to the international and regional security”
The military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is still posing a great threat to the international and regional security, As a result of the ethnic cleansing policy pursued against Azerbaijanis, 20 percent of the Azerbaijani territories are under occupation and one million Azerbaijanis have become refugees and internally displaced persons. Armenia continues to occupy not only Nagorno Karabakh, but also the other adjacent seven regions of Azerbaijan,” said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addressing OSCE’s Astana summit, APA’s correspondent reports from Astana.
The head of state mentioned that Armenia committed military crimes and genocide in Khojaly.
“Armenia destroyed our towns, villages, houses, sacred places, graves of our ancestors, mosques. They committed military crimes and genocide in Khojaly, Armenian gunmen killed hundreds of civilians only because they were Azerbaijanis. Over a hundred of the Khojaly victims are children,” he said.
The head of state noted that Nagorno Karabakh is a historical and internationally-recognized territory of Azerbaijan: “Today, Armenia uses force for keeping the occupied territories under control and impeding return of IDPs to their homelands. Nevertheless, Azerbaijan is loyal to peace talks and principles, 4 resolutions of the UN, OSCE’s decisions, resolutions of the European Parliament, Council of Europe and other organizations. But, instead of conducting negotiations in the direction of sooner solution of the conflict, Armenia prefers to use conflict escalation, violates ceasefire regime, holds military exercises in the occupied territories, changes names of our cities and villages, pursues illegal settlement policy and tries to change peace process into senseless one. And such behavior affords ground for thinking that Armenia does not intend to liberate the occupied territories, vice versa, it wants to maintain status-quo for a long time and change the negotiations conducted by mediation of OSCE Minsk Group into senseless process. Negotiations have been conducted for 20 years, but there is no result. We are ready to continue negotiations, finish it in a short time, achieve result based on territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and corresponding to international norms and principles”.
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