Interfax, Russia
April 18 2009
Azerbaijan reiterates non-acceptance of N.-Karabakh secession
MOSCOW April 18
Azerbaijan’s president reiterated in a television program on Saturday
that his country would never accept any Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
settlement formula that involved the disputed Armenian-speaking
enclave’s secession from Azerbaijan.
This is a position that "reflects the security of the people who live
there now and who will live there, it reflects the issue of the local
self-government of Nagorno-Karabakh, and it reflects the issue of the
restoration of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," Ilham Aliyev
told Russian television channel Vesti.
For this reason, "a decision on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh may be
put off for an indefinite time," he said.
"There can be no unilateral decision on the status of Nagorno-
Karabakh. Azerbaijan can’t see itself taking part, and never will take
part, in processes that would involve a mechanism of legal secession
of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan. That is our unambiguous
position," Aliyev said.
"The results of the conflict must be eliminated, the Armenian
occupation forces must be withdrawn from territory around the
administrative border of the former Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous
republic, but step by step," he said.
Azerbaijan expects that Armenia "will take a constructive attitude to
these issues and will approach them from the standpoint of
international law, among other things," the president said, "because
this problem is impossible to solve outside the limits of
international law."
"We realize the importance for the Armenian side to have a ground link
between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. We can’t see any problem about
this. And problems related to the Lachin Corridor can be solved
effectively, so that neither those who live in Nagorno-Karabakh today
nor Azeris who will return there after the conflict is settled should
have any reason for anxiety," Aliyev said.
"We realize that the conflict cannot be settled before the people who
live there feel secure, have the possibility of self-government, are
able to live their own life," he said.
"As far as this goes, we have no attempts at diktat or attempts to
interfere in their life. In other words, I think a combination of
these factors may lead to a breakthrough in the process of
settlement," Aliyev said.
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