Baku, Azerbaijan, March 13
By Fikret Dolukhanov – Trend:
The US position with regard to Nagorno-Karabakh remains unchanged and the United States doesn’t recognize the de-facto regime in Nagorno-Karabakh, nor does any other country, including Armenia, the US Embassy in Azerbaijan told Trend on March 13.
The remark was made in connection with the visit of Bako Sahakyan, who claims to be the “president” of the illegal regime created in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, to the US and the event promoting the fictitious regime in the US Congress.
"The United States supports the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair process and will continue to work toward a negotiated settlement based on the Helsinki Final Act principles of non-use of force, territorial integrity, and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples,” the embassy added.
Earlier, the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Robert Cekuta was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and received a note of protest, sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan to the US State Department.
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the US, after a meeting in the State Department, presented the protest of Azerbaijan to the American side.
According to Hikmat Hajiyev, Spokesman of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, the note said that getting an American visa on an Armenian passport and entering the US on the basis of unreliable information provided by Bako Sahakyan, a resident of the Khankendi city of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, permission to carry out activities that propagate an illegal separatist regime in relevant US institutions and aim at collecting finance in the United States in support of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories, contradict the norms and principles of international law, the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council, the bilateral documents signed between Azerbaijan and the United States, and the official position of the United States.
This step of the US is regarded as an activity against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, he added.
“As a response to such behavior of the US, Azerbaijan will proceed from the principle of reciprocity in relations with the US,” Hajiyev stressed.
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 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.