BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 2
Trend:
EU expressed its willingness to participate in the process of delimitation to help both sides to come to an agreement, and we support this initiative. But as far as I know, Armenia is hesitant. Armenia did not decide whether they will accept the EU’s proposal or not, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to Spanish EFE news agency, Trend reports.
“It has been discussed during the numerous contacts between our officials and EU officials, and also during the visit of President of the European Council Mr. Charles Michel to Azerbaijan this summer. We broadly discussed the post-war situation and expressed our joint willingness to engage actively. EU has a very big experience in different areas, in the areas of construction, in the areas of creation of the peaceful environment. Therefore, the EU expressed its willingness to participate in the process of delimitation to help both sides to come to an agreement, and we support this initiative. But as far as I know, Armenia is hesitant. Armenia did not decide whether they will accept the EU’s proposal or not. But Azerbaijan’s position is very open. We are ready to work and actually different levels of our officials were in permanent contact with the EU. EU can help us in delimitation, EU can help us in the opening of communications, and also post-war development. We also have been discussing with the EU the issue of economic assistance. We heard and we know that the EU has prepared or is in the process of preparing the economic recovery package for Armenia worth 2.6 billion euros. And of course, we expect that the same amount of money will be offered to Azerbaijan on the same terms and conditions. Whether it’s granted, whether it’s loans, it should be equal, because we are the country which suffered. We have 10.000 sq km of totally destroyed territory, all the cities, hundreds of cities, and villages. Therefore, we, of course, expressed our concern that this economic recovery package can be unbalanced and we are now in the process of communicating with the EU and expecting from them the proposal for us for economic support. So, EU can do a lot, and we are ready to use this opportunity and we trust EU as an honest broker,” the head of state said.