Interfax
Nov. 3, 2004
Karabakh criticizes Azerbaijan’s UN discussion initiative
Stepanakert. (Interfax) – Foreign Minister Ashot Gulian of the
self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh republic has harshly criticized
Azerbaijan’s initiative to discuss the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh in
the UN, calling it “a propagandist trick.”
“This initiative fully fits Azerbaijan’s policy whose aim is to
distract the international community’s attention from the essence of
the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh by using propagandist tricks,” Gulian
told journalists in Stepanakert on Tuesday.
“Azerbaijan is fully aware that these territories are under the control
of Nagorno-Karabakh forces and Armenia has nothing to do with them,”
Gulian said.
Nagorno-Karabakh is equally concerned by what is “going on in the
Nagorno-Karabakh territories, which are still under Azerbaijan’s
occupation,” he said.
Nagorno-Karabakh is willing to discuss any difficult questions with
Azerbaijan, Gulian said. The shortest way to reach a compromise is to
restore the negotiating process in its full format, involving Nagorno-
Karabakh as a full-fledged party in the negotiations, he said.
Baku lost control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a bloody conflict with Armenia
in the 1990s. The OSCE Minsk Group represented by the U.S., Russia, and
France is mediating in the settlement of the problem.