HAFIZ PASHAYEV: "ARMENIANS ARE PROMOTING RELIGIOUS FACTOR TO INTERPRETE AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA CONFLICT DUE TO THE ABSENCE OF SUBSTANTIATED ARGUMENTS"
Today, Azerbaijan
Dec 12 2007
"I find it rather an unfortunate coincidence that all three
co-chairs of the Minsk group that is tasked with the resolution of
the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict are representatives of the countries
(Russia, France, United States) where Armenian lobby is particularly
strong", Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Hafiz Pashayev announced
during the international conference "Azerbaijan-Turkey-United States
relations and their impact on Eurasian region" held in Washington.
Hafiz Pashayev noted that a major headache for the country remains
the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.
He considers that that the real problem lies with distortions created
by the Armenian misinformation in the international arena.
"Looking back to the beginning of 1990s, I remember that Armenians
intentionally used religious factor in the interpretation of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. At that time it was an attempt by the
Armenian politicians to win the support of the conservative Christian
groups in the US Congress and in the governments of other countries.
But quite soon the reality has prevailed, because in its nature this
conflict is not of a religious character at all", he said and cited
excellent relations between Muslim Azerbaijan and Christian Georgia
and the support of Shia Iran to Christian Armenia as a proof of
baselessness of Armenians’ statements.
Hafiz Pashayev stressed that Armenian politicians again started
promoting this factor, hoping to gain some points because they have
nothing else to say in their argument and again have to come back
to such a primitive, yet potentially destructive explanation of
the conflict.
He regarded it as a result of Azerbaijan’s positive efforts to raise
awareness in the world about the true nature of the conflict and the
sign of Armenia’s ideological loss a positive.
"Azerbaijan now, as many of you know, is in the process of rapid
development. This is a very historic period. Economy is growing at
the fastest rate in the world, political stability is a source of
pride and the real task ahead of us to use this economic growth and
oil revenues for the improvement of the public infrastructure and to
diversify non-oil economy for the better future of our children. It
would be appropriate to mention here the vision and policies of
President Ilham Aliyev, who is keen to invest oil revenues into other
sectors of economy and social life", H.Pashayev said.
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