BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 29. Armenia needs to put down territorial claims to Azerbaijan and to Turkiye and not to be hesitant in any kind of interaction on trilateral level in the South Caucasus, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said addressing the international conference under the motto “South Caucasus: Development and Cooperation”, Trend reports.
"It’s obvious that for the time-being our main concentration is how to rebuild Karabakh and how to return the former refugees as soon as possible. At the same time, our peace agenda and initiatives which have been publicly articulated and were supported by international community is aimed at regional development, new opportunities for regional development in the South Caucasus. Not only between Azerbaijan and Armenia, of course, this is one of the most important element of regional cooperation, but in the Southern Caucasus in general. We lost this opportunity for thirty years because of separatism, because of Armenian aggression, and the South Caucasus was not integrated. Yes, there is a very close cooperation between Azerbaijan and Georgia, which on bilateral level and on international level already presents its importance. At the same time, I think that there should be also understanding in Armenia that they cannot continue to live like an isolated island in this region. They need to normalize relations with us, they need to put down territorial claims to Azerbaijan and to Turkiye and not to be hesitant in any kind of interaction on trilateral level in the South Caucasus. Why am I saying that? Because there have been already several times proposals from Azerbaijan supported by leading international organizations to organize trilateral meetings on different levels. We suggested on the levels of foreign ministers. Armenia refused. Then, there was a suggestion to have this meeting on the level of experts, again Armenia refused. Then we suggested to have this meeting on the level of representatives of civil society, and again Armenia refused. This is known by our partners and we do not understand why. Because we think it is counter-productive if we looked to the future of South Caucasus as integrated area of security, cooperation, and shared prosperity then this policy of Armenia is beyond any logic. Probably, they need some time, probably, they need to evaluate risks which they think may occur from that. But I think it’s inevitable, and we are ready and our Georgian colleagues are ready," the head of state said.