PRESS RELEASE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia
Contact: Information Desk
Tel: (374-1) 52-35-31
Email: [email protected]
Web:
Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hamlet Gasparian responds to a Question by the
Armenian Daily, Hayastani Hanrapetutyun, on Azerbaijan¹s UN Initiative
Question: Today, the UN General Assembly voted on Azerbaijan¹s initiative
to include a resolution on ³The Status of Occupied Territories in
Azerbaijan² during the UN General Assembly 59th session. The initiative did
in fact enter the agenda. What is your comment?
Answer: Yes, there was a vote today on whether to include the issue on the
agenda and of the UN¹s 191 member countries, only 43 countries voted in
favor of Azerbaijan¹s initiative. The remainder abstained. The Netherlands,
on behalf of the European Union, spoke against Azerbaijan¹s initiative, and
France did as well, on behalf of the OSCE Minsk Group. The vote showed that
this initiative does not enjoy the broad support of the international
community.
The overwhelming majority of those who voted with Azerbaijan are members of
the Organization of Islamic Countries, which is currently chaired by Turkey.
This means that, unfortunately, Azerbaijan is attempting to give the
conflict a different color by recruiting the Islamic countries and
exploiting the prevailing solidarity within that organization. We believe
such actions will definitely have a negative effect on the peace process.
Nevertheless, I want to also stress that exactly 40% of the OIC membership
did not succumb to Turkey¹s and Azerbaijan¹s pressure and did not support
the Azerbaijani initiative.
I¹d like to point out a few other important facts. No permanent members of
the UN Security Council voted in favor of Azerbaijan¹s initiative. Nor did
any non-permanent members of the Security Council either, except for
Pakistan. No European Union member country supported the initiative nor did
any OSCE Minsk Group country with the exception of Turkey.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia states one more
time that through such steps Azerbaijan is attempting to divert the
international community from the actual core of the NK conflict, which is
the status of Nagorno Karabakh.
We have said and will repeat again that if Azerbaijan removes individual
issues from the comprehensive discussion of Nagorno Karabakh¹s status to
attract or divert international attention, then they must negotiate those
issues directly with Nagorno Karabakh.
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