Azeri official plays down Armenian leader’s Karabakh remarks

Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
12 Mar 04

[Presenter] Baku believes that Armenian President Robert Kocharyan’s
statement that Nagornyy Karabakh can never become part of Azerbaijan
again is intended to cast a shadow on our country.

Saying this, the head of the Presidential Executive Staff, Ramiz
Mehdiyev, added that Kocharyan’s mythical remarks that if Nagornyy
Karabakh is returned to Azerbaijan, hundreds of thousands of axes
would be hanging over the Karabakh Armenians show that he is not
faring well in his country.

Mehdiyev also stressed that while the Armenian president is saying
that there is no political crisis in Armenia, his attempts to foment
tensions around the Nagornyy Karabakh issue testify to the opposite
and show that there is a deep political crisis in Armenia.

The head of the Presidential Executive Staff also pointed to the fact
that 30,000 Armenians still live in Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan, he said,
is demonstrating to the whole world that the Armenians can live in
peace among the Azerbaijanis and there is no threat to their
lives. This is the result of the security guarantees that we have been
providing for the Armenians for years.

At the same time, Mehdiyev said that Armenia cannot conceal its
aggressive anti-Azerbaijani policy, as a result of which there are no
Azerbaijanis on Armenian territory. He added that the Azerbaijanis
were driven out of Armenia even more cruelly than with axes. Today
Armenian snipers are targeting peaceful Azerbaijanis. But they can
only do that in borderline areas.