[Armenian News note: the below is translated from Azeri]

The Azerbaijani foreign minister has said that Armenia's proposal to get breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh involved in the Baku-Yerevan negotiations may ruin the peace talks.

"If the Armenian leadership proposes the involvement of separatist Nagorno-Karabakh representatives in the negotiations, it means that they want to ruin the peace process," the APA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov as saying.

The minister added that he had told the OSCE Minsk Group mediators that the proposal was "ridiculous".

The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh's involvement in the talks on resolving the conflict was returned to the agenda by Armenia's new Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who in early May blamed the lack of progress in the conflict settlement on the separatists' non-involvement in the negotiations going on between Yerevan and Baku over the past 25 years. Baku has refused to have any talks with the separarists, saying that it was Armenia that seized Azerbaijani territories, including Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mammadyarov went on to say that Baku was ready to establish good relations with Yerevan after the Karabakh conflict was resolved in Baku's favour.

"I do not know, where the latest developments [presumably the leadership change in Armenia] will lead us to, but the reality is that Azerbaijan is ready to build good-neighbourly relations with Armenians, naturally after Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty are restored. We will not give up our sovereignty and territorial integrity. Our borders are recognised internationally," Mammadyarov said.

The minister said that the date and venue of his meeting with his Armenian counterpart had not been set yet.