BAKU, Azerbaijan, Aug. 21
Trend:
Recent interview of Armenian Ambassador to Israel Armen Smbatyan once again exposed the hypocritical policy of the Armenian state, Head of the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, MP Tural Ganjaliyev said, Trend reports.
In the interview, Smbatyan tried to pass himself off as a supporter of contacts between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, Ganjaliyev noted.
The Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, as one of the parties to the conflict, has been proposing to initiate a dialogue between the Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of the occupied Karabakh region for many years, he added.
However, the political leadership of Armenia, which has brought Azerbaijanophobia to the level of state policy, not only prevents this, but even cynically denies the very existence of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh region, said MP.
“If Smbatyan really supports the dialogue between the two peoples, let him support the proposal of the Azerbaijani community," he stressed.
In the meantime, the message saying 'The settlement of the conflict does not depend on us, but on the OSCE Minsk Group,' voiced by the ambassador of the aggressor country that occupied part of the territory of Azerbaijan and subjected more than a million of our compatriots to ethnic cleansing, is Armenia's another attempt to evade responsibility, Ganjaliyev said.
“The reason the conflict has not been resolved to this day is the illegal presence of Armenian troops in the territories of Azerbaijan. With the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from our occupied territories, relations between the two peoples will be restored,“ MP added.
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, 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 the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno Karabakh and the surrounding districts.