Interfax, Russia
Nov 21 2009

Baku wants to stop progress at presidential meeting – Armenian foreign
ministry

YEREVAN Nov 20

The latest statement by Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Araz
Azimov is aimed at suppressing possible progress at the forthcoming
meeting between the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Armenian
Foreign Ministry said.

"It has become a norm for Azerbaijan to issue statements, in the
run-up to a presidential meeting, aimed at preventing possible
progress expected from such meeting," Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister
Shavarsh Kocharian was quoted as saying by the Armenian Foreign
Ministry’s press office.

"In Mr. Azimov’s approximate view, Azerbaijan acts in line with
international law by carrying out ethnic cleansing against the self-
determined people of Nagorno-Karabakh, launching a massive aggression
against the republic, involving militants from terrorist
organizations, which leads to multiple human losses and colossal
material damage, as well as unsuccessful attempts to shift its
responsibility for all this as an aggressor state to Armenia,"
Kocharian added.

"Unless Azeri officials renounce their belligerent statements,
propaganda sowing ethnic animosity, and their destructive statements
misrepresenting international law, unless they realize that it is the
people of Artsakh who are entitled to decide the status of Nagorno-
Karabakh, it will be obvious that they conduct these negotiations not
for progress but to cover their unjustified propaganda," Kocharian
said.