Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 17 / Trend S. Agayeva /
Vladimir Kazimirov's article posted on Armenian Web site armtoday.info is provocative and distorts the essence of events in the region, Fikret Sadikhov, Azerbaijani political scientist and diplomat, said.
Kazimirov was mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 1992-1996.
"If one does not know whose article it is, one can imagine that this was not a diplomat involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from 1992 to 1996 with a mediation mission, but a politician from Yerevan," Sadikhov said.
According to him, the former mediator's concern is that the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Euronews, that Azerbaijan will never agree to Karabakh's independence and will not accept any mechanisms or procedures that could potentially lead to its separation.
"It is simply impossible to say more reasonably, logically and clearly. Azerbaijan had to conduct lengthy negotiations to set up the Minsk Group to agree about the separation of Karabakh," Sadikhov said.
Azerbaijan has repeatedly stated that they stand for peaceful solution of the problem and the only thing they added was that if a peaceful path does not give any results, then they will use force to resolve the conflict, he added.
"Kazimirov said that it turns out that Azerbaijan ignored all U.N. Security Council resolutions dated 1991, but Armenia didn't. There is a complete distortion of facts. The document states that it is necessary to withdraw Armenian troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. There is another document dated March 2008 of the 62nd session of the U.N. General Assembly. It also stresses the need for immediate and full withdrawal of all Armenian forces from Azerbaijani territories," Sadikhov said.
"There are thoughts of Kazimirov, which demonstrate concern about the situation in the region. But I am sure he is not concerned about the region; he is concerned with how the Armenian population of Karabakh will express their will and how it will be able to vote. He is not interested, and even fears the fact that Azerbaijanis lived all their life on this land and this is Azerbaijani land," the politician said.
"The article negatively affects the formation of public opinion towards Russia in Azerbaijan and, of course, does not honor a former co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, now such an active and highly biased advocate for the interests of Armenia," the diplomat said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a cease-fire agreement in 1994.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the United States - are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the occupied territories.