The Azerbaijani foreign minister has said that a summit of Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian leaders will show the level of the Karabakh peace talks.
Answering questions from the public in the town of Marneuli in Georgia, which has a large ethnic Azerbaijani population, Elmar Mammadyarov talked about his meeting with his Russian and Armenian counterparts in Moscow on Saturday and the forthcoming presidential summit in Kazan.
“We discussed the Karabakh issue in Moscow recently. The occupied territories are the biggest problem. Unfortunately some issues remained unresolved during the three-hour meeting of the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian foreign ministers in Moscow on 11 June," APA reported Mammadyarov as saying.
"But there was progress on some issues. The Kazan meeting between the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian presidents will show the level of negotiations. I believe it will clarify whether Armenians are playing a game or not," the Azerbaijani foreign minister said.
"The presidents of the USA, Russia and France, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries, have made their third joint statement on Karabakh issue. It shows that the current situation is completely unacceptable. No one accepts this status quo. Of course, we have to start the liberation of the occupied territories. Armenian troops must be withdrawn from the occupied territories, all communications and roads must be restored and opened. After that the status of Nagorno Karabakh can be determined.”
The minister restated Baku's position that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty must be restored. It is too difficult to restore it within a day. This is a phase-by-phase process. First of all we must achieve the withdrawal of the Armenian troops from the occupied territories. Therefore, we must continue and complete the process, we must not allow this process to last for a hundred years. The international community demands, at the level of the Russian and American presidents, that the status quo must be changed. I believe that now we have opportunities. We can achieve it,” he said.
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