Azerbaijan, Baku, Feb. 25 / Trend A. Taghiyeva /
Today Azerbaijan is able to return its lands in any way, spokesman for the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Elman Abdullayev said in an interview with Turkish TV channel TRT Haber today.
"Azerbaijan is able to return its lands in any way," he said. "As we are against human losses, political, rather than a military solution is the priority for Azerbaijan."
He added that the main goal of Azerbaijani diplomacy is to change the status quo.
"Khojaly was not chosen for perpetrating the massacre of the Azerbaijanis by chance," he said. "One of the causes of the tragedy at Khojaly is a geo-strategic location of the city and in particular the airport located there."
He said the massacre was led by those who are holding now and previously held the leading positions in Armenia. Incumbent Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and ex-President Robert Kocharian are among them.
"They do not even try to hide this fact and repeatedly said and admitted this in their interviews with the media," he said.
Abdullayev stressed that Azerbaijan is trying to bring the truth about the Khojaly to the world community resulting in the recognition of Khojaly events as genocide by the parliaments of several countries.
On Feb. 25-26 February, 1992, Armenian occupation forces together with the 366th infantry regiment of Soviet troops stationed in Khankendi (previously Stepanakert) committed an act of genocide towards the population of the Azerbaijani Khojaly town.
Some 613 people were killed including 63 children, 106 women and 70 old men. A total of 1000 civilians were disabled during the genocide. Eight families were killed, 130 children lost one parent and 25 lost both. Additionally, 1275 innocent residents were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 remains unknown.
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 four U.N. Security Council resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.