Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 11
By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:
Azerbaijan’s borders are open for everyone who comes to the country with friendly intentions, without any hostile and provocative plans, Azerbaijani MP Elman Nasirov told Trend Jan. 11.
He was commenting on the statement by spokeswoman of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in connection with the non-admission of a Russian citizen of Armenian nationality to Azerbaijan.
He said that Zakharova perfectly understands that Azerbaijan has been in a state of war with Armenia for almost 30 years.
“During intense fighting in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenians who were citizens of Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Latin American countries, France, Syria, Lebanon and other countries, came as assassins and fought against Azerbaijan as part of the Armenian armed forces and committed genocide,” he noted. “Then why Azerbaijan, knowing all this, should create a threat to its security? Zakharova should understand this. Russia also uses all means to ensure its security and doesn’t admit people who represent a threat to the country, regardless of their citizenship, and this is natural. The Azerbaijani state also has to take the appropriate steps to protect the security of its citizens.”
Nasirov added that if Russia is so worried about its citizens, then why it remains silent about Russian citizen Dilgam Asgarov taken hostage by Armenians.
“If injustice is shown abroad against a Russian citizen, Moscow immediately sends a statement to that foreign country and conducts negotiations,” the Azerbaijani MP said. “Dilgam Asgarov is also a Russian citizen, then why Russia ignores his unlawfully being taken hostage by Armenians, his arrest by an unfair “trial”? It should be considered that Dilgam Asgarov was taken hostage in his native land, in the occupied Kalbajar district.”
During an operation in July 2014 in Shaplar village of Azerbaijani Kalbajar district occupied by Armenia, the Armenian special forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and took hostage two other Azerbaijanis, Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov. A "criminal case" was initiated against them. Afterwards, a "court" sentenced Asgarov to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years in prison.
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.