Novruz Mammadov: “Vardan Oskanian trying to derail peace talks”

Today, Azerbaijan
March 17 2006

17 March 2006 [15:48] – Today.Az

An Azeri presidential administration official has accused Armenian
Foreign Minister of attempting to derail efforts to settle the
long-standing Nagorno Karabakh conflict, following the latter’s
outrageous statement.

“Vardan Oskanian is trying to disrupt peace talks. As I understand,
his latest statements signal that he wants to negatively affect the
entire peace process,” the head of the President’s Office
international relations department, Novruz Mammadov said, while
commenting on Oskanian’s statement that Nagorno Karabakh “has never
been part of Azerbaijan and is Armenian land”.

The Armenian minister also maintained that if Baku does not recognize
the independence of the self-proclaimed republic, the occupied land
would “never be returned”.

“Azerbaijan reserves the right to free its land from under the
aggressor country’s occupation and this is in line with international
law,” Mammadov said.

He added that Armenia has recently been under pressure with regard to
the conflict resolution, AssA-Irada reports.

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