14:59,

YEREVAN, JULY 19, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s Foreign Ministry has commented on the statement of the representative of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry, which contains territorial claims to Armenia.

The MFA provided a comment to ARMENPRESS.

Question: Yesterday the representative of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry made a comment which contains territorial and historical claims towards Armenia. How do you assess such demands?

Foreign Ministry: By making fake territorial and historical demands towards Armenia, the Azerbaijani side is trying to remove the Karabakh conflict from the international agenda on the one hand, and on the other hand to create new threats for regional security and stability.

Trying to justify such fake agenda, the Azerbaijani side doesn’t hesitate to attribute obvious falsifications to the November 9 trilateral statement. If we derive from the logic of the Azerbaijani interpretation of that document’s reference to the return of displaced persons, the Armenian refugees must return to Nakhijevan, Gandzak, Baku, Sumgait and other territories of present-day Azerbaijan evicted from Armenians.

As for the historical claims towards Armenia made by the Azerbaijani foreign ministry spokesperson, it’s difficult for us to perceive the Azerbaijani criteria of “historical” definition. We have to remind again that history can never be the strong side of a country, whose both geographical and political name has a history of a century, and the name of Azerbaijani is even newer than that.

The efforts of Azerbaijani leadership to spread and maintain lasting enmity between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples are a constant threat to regional peace and security. Before accusing Armenia of revanchism, Azerbaijan must explain the international community what is the meaning of the “trophy park” in Baku, which is nothing more than a shameful “monument” of revanchism and hatred.  

Armenia will continue acting consistently from the positions of the exercise of the Artsakh people’s right to self-determination, de-occupation of the territories of Artsakh which were subject to ethnic cleansing and the return of the Armenian population to those territories in accordance with the November 9 trilateral statement. Only the resumption of the Karabakh peaceful settlement process under auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship can create preconditions for the lasting peace in the region”.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan