BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 16
Trend:
Without beginning of liberation of the territories it will not be possible to agree on the status, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said at the panel discussions on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict held as part of the Munich Security Conference, Trend reports.
"This proposal was seriously considered by Azerbaijan. And in general we gave our agreement to that. That is the most reasonable thing to do, because it is clear that we need to resolve this conflict in phases. We cannot resolve it one and completely in one day. It should be put in phases and the first phase should be, and as the journalists said in Russian proposal, the liberation of part of the occupied territories, return of the Azerbaijani IDPs to those territories, resettlement of that territory," President Ilham Aliyev said.
"In a meantime, the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the status of Nagorno-Karabakh to be discussed later, when both sides are ready. Because without the process on the ground, without beginning of liberation of the territories it will not be possible to agree on the status. Our position in the status must not interfere with territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. At the same time, we always were saying that Azerbaijan is a multi confessional and a multi-national country. There are many national minorities in Azerbaijan who live in peace and dignity. And when our territorial integrity is fully restored Armenians as national minority will enjoy all the rights and privileges as any other representative of any other nation in our country," President Ilham Aliyev added.