Baku / 10/17/18 / Turan: The press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry expressed "surprise" by the _expression_ "all parties to the conflict" used by the Russian Foreign Ministry in assessing the recent visit of the deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation and other Russian leaders to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The commentary of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry to the Turan agency said that, as co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, the Russian Foreign Ministry well knows that according to the OSCE final document of 1992 – the Final Statement of the Helsinki Council of Ministers – Armenia and Azerbaijan were recognized as parties to the conflict.

At present, negotiations within the Minsk Group are also being conducted in this format.

"We believe that the reaction of the Foreign Ministry of the Russian Federation to this provocative and not conducive to the peaceful settlement of the conflict, the visit of the Deputy Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma Svetlana Zhurova, is not effective," the commentary noted.

A group of Russian women last week visited Nagorno-Karabakh at the invitation of the wife of Armenian Prime Minister Anna Hakobyan. The visit was announced as peacekeeping, however, provoked protests from official Baku. However, the organizers ignored the opinion of Azerbaijan, not to visit the occupied territories without the consent of Baku. Therefore, the participants of the trip were included in the "black list" and they were denied entry to Azerbaijan. -02D-