BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 16
Trend:
I have already said several times that the Minsk Group was established in 1992, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to Turkish Haber Turk TV channel, Trend reports.
“We do not know what groundwork there was at the time. There are countries in this group that are not interested in this region at all. They have no interests and no influence in this region. Therefore, if they want a solution to this conflict – we do want this – then there must be countries that could contribute to peace in real life,” the head of state said.
“Of course, we see fraternal Turkey in this process. We welcome this. We know that the Minsk Group was established by the OSCE, which has its own rules. There are probably some legal procedures involved in changing the composition of this group. We don't want to go too much into detail. Therefore, I said that it did not matter whether this would be de jure or de facto – the main thing is that Turkey should be at this table. It is already there because my dear brother, dear Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has repeatedly met and talked with respected Putin about the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. For many years now, i.e. for more than 10 years, this issue has been on the Turkish-Russian agenda. I am aware of this. Both the President of Turkey and the President of Russia told me about this. Turkey is already there. There is an even larger volume, an even larger scale now,” the Azerbaijani president said.
“You know, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr. Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaks on the phone with Mr. Lavrov, the Turkish Defense Minister Mr. Hulusi Akar, speaks with Mr. Shoigu. Who can say that Turkey is not in the process? If there is no Turkey, then why are you saying this? Turkey is there. And we will do everything possible to keep it this way because this issue cannot be resolved without Turkey's participation. Everyone should understand this. As for the formal side of the issue, I repeat that the Minsk Group may remain, it has not achieved any result in 30 years anyway. But the sooner this issue is resolved, the sooner the Minsk Group will become unnecessary,” the head of state said.