- FROM AFP NEWS
Canada's foreign minister Melanie Joly called on Azerbaijan to "respect" Armenia's borders on a visit to Yerevan Wednesday, a month after Baku took control of Nagorno-Karabakh in a lightning offensive.
Tensions are high between the Caucasus foes after the speedy military campaign, which led to an exodus of Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population.
Yerevan fears energy-rich Baku may seek — with Turkish help — to forcibly connect its Nakhichevan exclave with Azerbaijan proper by capturing lands in southern Armenia, along the Iranian border.
Joly urged Azerbaijan to "respect Armenia's territorial integrity", during a press conference with her Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan.
"Canada continues to call on the Azerbaijani government to respect the right of Armenians to return to Nagorno-Karabakh," she added.
Almost all of Karabakh's ethnic Armenian population — some 100,000 people — fled for Armenia after Baku's lightning offensive, sparking a refugee crisis.
Baku has vowed to ensure the rights of Karabakh's Armenians are protected and denied having any territorial claims to Armenia.
But Yerevan has accused it of "ethnic cleansing".
Joly announced the opening of a Canadian embassy in Yerevan, during the first ever visit of a Canadian foreign minister to the landlocked Caucasus country.
Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan and home to a majority Armenian population, was at the centre of two wars between Yerevan and Baku — in 2020 and in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Internationally mediated peace talks between the ex-Soviet republics have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.