Baku, Azerbaijan, July 9

By Seba Aghayeva - Trend:

The House of Commons of the UK Parliament didn't receive the head of Nagorno-Karabakh separatist regime Bako Sahakyan, Azerbaijani Ambassador to the UK Tahir Taghizadeh told Trend July 9.

He made the remarks referring to an official letter of the head of the public information of the House of Commons of the UK Matt Ringer.

"Any member of the UK Parliament may order an office in the parliament building on commercial basis and invite private entities to participate in meetings or to give speech," said the letter. "That is, apparently, was the case with Bako Sahakyan."

"The House of Commons formally didn't receive Bako Sahakyan and he did not formally give speech," said the letter.

One has to keep in mind that only speaker and heads of committees are officials in the UK Parliament, said the ambassador. When any meetings are held within the framework of inter-parliamentary friendship groups, they are held not as official ones, he said.

"The information of Armenian media about the alleged event in the UK Parliament, in which the head of the separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh Bako Sahakyan gave speech and talked about the "progress" of the illegal entity called by separatists "NKR" (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic), once again, is an attempt to deliberately mislead the international community and create an additional factor of tension, which is present as an important component of the political situation in the South Caucasus region since the start of the conflict and the beginning of the armed aggression and occupation of the internationally recognized territory of Azerbaijan by Armenian armed units," said Taghizadeh.

Such attempts sometimes find allies in states, including the ones of the European continent, he said with regret.

In accordance with the information obtained by the embassy from the management of the territorial department of the UK Foreign Office and representatives of the parliament of the country, these reports are not true, the ambassador said.

The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office has once again confirmed that no official meetings were provided and held for Bako Sahakyan, the diplomat said.

Constant attempts to indulge in wishful thinking by the Armenian side are regrettable and evoke a feeling of disgust, said Taghizadeh.

The photos from the meeting of Sahakyan in the parliament, published by Armenian media, are the same photographs of his meeting in the Armenian house in London. If Bako Sahakyan brought a personal photographer with him to London, hadn't he taken him to the parliament? Did Bako Sahakyan miss an opportunity for PR and didn't take shots with members of the UK Parliament?

Why aren't there any photos from the meeting in the parliament and why no information to support his visit and the speech in the UK parliament can be found?

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.