Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 15 / Trend E. Tariverdiyeva /
People of many nationalities have always lived peacefully in Azerbaijan. There are about 35,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan up till now. However there are no Azerbaijani people in Armenia and very few other nationalities, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Elman Abdullayev told Trend today.
He was commenting on Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan's recent negative comments toward Azerbaijan.
"Serzh Sargsyan knows about such grave crimes and xenophobia," he said. "It is enough to mention the bloody ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh against Azerbaijani civilians and grave crimes committed by Armenians in Khojaly."
He added that Sargsyan's regime continues committing crimes against its own people and has already caused unbearable living conditions in the country. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people leave Armenia.
"Apparently, this is referred to as freedom and heroism in Armenia," he said. However, an attempt to downplay the tragedy of the situation by gifts from the diaspora and some countries is not the solution for the Armenian people's problems."
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France and the U.S. are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.