Azerbaijan will never allow a second Armenian state to be created in its sovereign territory, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, told APA.
Peace will not be established in the region unless Armenia withdraws its troops from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories, Hajiyev said, commenting on Armenian President Serzh Sargysyan’s remarks at the 6th Pan-Armenian Armenia-Diaspora Conference that the Armenian army is allegedly committed to stability and peace.
He underlined that the presence of Armenian armed forces in Azerbaijan’s occupied territories remains a direct threat to the regional peace.
“No one knows for sure what principles Armenia’s head of state is talking about,” the spokesman said,” the spokesman said. “The principles concerning the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are mentioned in UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 which condemn the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, reaffirm Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and border inviolability, and call for an immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied Azerbaijani territories.”
“There is no expiry for the UN Security Council resolutions which are on the agenda as long as they remain unfulfilled,” added Hajiyev.
He stressed that Azerbaijan will never allow a second Armenian state to be created in its sovereign territory.
“The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan must be ensured within its internationally recognized borders. The sooner the Armenian leadership realizes this, the sooner the peace will be restored in the region, and the Armenian population, living in property, will be able to benefit from the opportunities for regional cooperation,” Hajiyev said.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.
A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.
The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.
Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in December 1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.
Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.
Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.