ILHAM ALIYEV ADVISES MEDIATORS ON KARABAKH TO BETTER LEARN HISTORY OF THE PAST TWENTY YEARS

ArmInfo
2010-04-15 11:21:00

ArmInfo. We entered in a very decisive stage of the solution to
Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, President of
Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said at the cabinet meeting on April 14.

"We noted many times that the conflict could be solved only on the
basis of international law. Four resolutions adopted by UN Security
Council must be fulfilled, the occupation forces must be withdrawn
from all of the occupied lands and Azerbaijani citizens – refugees
and internally displaced persons must return to the occupied lands,
including Nagorno Karabakh. The status of Nagorno Karabakh can be
determined only after that and this status can be granted only within
the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan will never agree
with any status out of that. No one will recognize Nagorno Karabakh
as an independent subject upon our disagreement", Aliyev said. "After
return of our citizens to the occupied lands the temporary status
of Nagorno Karabakh can find its solution", said the President and
emphasized that the status could be only within the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan. According to the Head of State, in very
beginning and throughout the negotiation process, the position of
Azerbaijan was that Nagorno Karabakh can receive the highest autonomous
status in the world", Aliyev emphasized. Having made a pass at Armenia
and blamed it for carrying out of "ethnic cleansings", Aliyev said:
"We never conducted ethnic cleansing operations and we never had such
intentions (Aliyev preferred not to remember the pogroms in Baku and
Sumgait – Ed.). The Azerbaijani president added that present Armenia
was established in the historic lands of Azerbaijan. Aliyev also said
that "Armenia is artificially prolonging the negotiations. Armenia is
not sincere in the negotiations and delaying the negotiations under
the different pretexts". Having praised the Azerbaijani diplomacy,
the president said that "very dangerous points and mechanisms,
which threatened Nagorno Karabakh to separate it from Azerbaijan,
have been removed from negotiations due to the Azerbaijani diplomacy".

"We already reached that line that both Armenian and Azerbaijani sides
must express their positions. We expressed our position. Azerbaijan
officially expressed it position in the negotiations with Armenian
president in Munich last November and in the last trilateral meeting in
Sochi with participation of Russian president Medvedev that it accepts
the proposals made on the basis of renewed Madrid principles and it
contains few unsettling points for Azerbaijan. Unfortunately Armenia
has not expressed its position so far and it has not expressed any
position in the past two months, and as we were informed, the issues
they added to this proposal will return us back to the beginning
of the process. It can not be accepted by us or by the OSCE Minsk
Group. We were promised that there will be very serious work with
Armenia to assure them to accept the new proposals. We are in this
stage", the Azerbaijani president said.

Of course, Aliyev did not specify who and how will "work" with
Armenia. The head of state mentioned that he had said they would not
hold negotiations for imitation. "We will hold the negotiations by the
time we have hope that they will produce results. If we see there is
no hope, the negotiations should be stopped and of course a new stage
will begin. It is still early to say what that stage will consist of.

Anyway, we are ready for any scenario. We are making our preparations
so that we can take steps in accordance with the situation", Aliyev
said and advised OSCE MG co-chairing countries to be very sensitive
and learn the history of the past twenty years in order to draw
rights conclusions.