By Trend

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry assesses the visit of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, including the contact line, as a call to war, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hikmet Hajiyev told Trend.

"After the visit of the Armenian president, Pashinyan's visit to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan is a provocation and a deliberate step to aggravate the situation. They openly show that Armenia is not interested in resolving the conflict through negotiations and, ultimately, in ending military aggression and occupation, and withdrawing its troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories", Hajiyev said.

He pointed out that Armenia’s purpose is to paralyze the negotiation process with various tricks, aggravate the situation by provocations, ultimately continue the occupation of Azerbaijani territories and maintain the status quo.

"Everyone knows what is an alternative to the negotiations, and therefore responsibility lies entirely with Armenia," Hajiyev said.

Hajiyev said he is confident that the new Armenian leadership, which has populist and ultra-chauvinist nationalist views, understanding its inability to solve serious social and economic problems in the country, is trying to manipulate the public consciousness with the theme of the war and Karabakh. "The utopian and impracticable program, presented by the new government of Armenia, openly demonstrates the situation in which the country turned out to be. But the military adventurous policy pursued by the new leadership of Armenia puts the region face to face with new threats,” Hajiyev said.