Baku, Azerbaijan, May 18
Trend:
Sputnik-Abkhazia reported that Raul Khadjimba, who presents himself as the "president" of Abkhazia, and Director of the Fourth CIS States Department at the Russian Foreign Ministry Alexei Pavlovsky met with representatives of the illegal regime established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, as well as Dnepr and South Ossetian regimes.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry assessed this as a serious blow to peace and security in the region.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman Hikmet Hajiyev, commenting on this issue, told Trend that protests and serious concerns will be conveyed to Russian Foreign Ministry through diplomatic channels.
"This, in no case, is not a step towards building a trust in the region to ensure a lasting peace and security. Instead, this serves to further aggravation of the situation in the region," he said, commenting on the meeting of the Russian Foreign Ministry's official with the "representative" of the illegal regime.
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.