BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 13
Trend:
Armenia needs to show political will and a constructive approach, Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev said at the 6th meeting of foreign ministers of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Nur-Sultan (Kazakhstan), Trend reports citing the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.
Mammad-Guliyev said that Azerbaijan is one of the first countries that supported the convening of the CICA.
In his speech, he said that after the liberation of the Azerbaijani lands from the Armenian occupation [in the 2020 second Karabakh war], work is underway to restore these territories.
“These territories have been declared a zone of ‘green energy’ and are being restored taking into account the concept of ‘smart city’ and ‘smart village’,” Mammad-Guliyev said.
Besides, in the context of normalizing the situation in the post-conflict period, strengthening peace and confidence in the region and developing trade and transport links in the North-South and East-West directions, the deputy foreign minister emphasized the great potential of the Zangazur corridor [opening of which is envisaged in the trilateral statement of November 10, 2021 between the Azerbaijani president, Armenia's PM, and the president of Russia to end the second Karabakh war].
Mammad-Guliyev also informed the event participants that Armenia has contaminated Azerbaijani territories with mines and refuses to provide accurate maps of minefields to Azerbaijan.
He stressed that for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and for the signing of a peace agreement between the two countries, Armenia needs to demonstrate political will and a constructive approach.
Following the meeting, a statement was released, in which the foreign ministers of the CICA member countries called on the UN, other international organizations, as well as states to help the respective countries in clearing the territories contaminated with mines and other explosive devices.
Also, the statement stressed the importance of further development of transport corridors and logistics centers in the CICA space, encouraging the digitalization of multimodal corridors and the transport sector. In addition, the document noted the importance of the development of transport corridors to ensure peace and economic growth.