BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 30. TheMinsk Group became an instrument in the hands of those who wanted this occupation to last forever, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said making a speech at the Baku Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement Parliamentary Network, Trend reports.
"When in 2019 in Baku I spoke at NAM summit, I said that we will defend justice and international law. We know what it means when you cannot restore it yourself. When you depend on others, but we were waiting for many years, for almost 30 years. We were waiting for the international community to help to resolve this injustice and put an end to occupation. For that purpose, the OSCE created Minsk Group in 1992, which was supposed to find a solution to this conflict, in other words, to put an end to occupation. But, on the contrary, the Minsk Group became an instrument in the hands of those who wanted this occupation to last forever. And now, when Azerbaijan resolved the conflict, put an end to occupation, restored its territorial integrity by military and then political means, there is no need for the Minsk Group any longer. We already said farewell to the Minsk Group. But, unfortunately, Armenia and some others want to revitalize it. It is not possible. It is already dead and we, as a country which suffered from occupation, we say that openly and I think that any further speculation about the OSCE Minsk Group is not only counterproductive, but also destructive for possible peace in our region," the head of state said.
"On 10 November 2020, after 44 days of liberation war, Patriotic War, Armenia had to capitulate and to admit its defeat and then was forced to liberate the remaining territories, which were not liberated on the battlefield. And it took only 44 days for us, but we waited for almost 30 years. During the years of occupation, on many occasions, speaking on different international events, I was calling for sanctions to be imposed on Armenia and saying that the only way how to resolve this problem peacefully is to impose sanctions on Armenia. The sanctions, which will be efficient and which will be damaging to the economy, but unfortunately no sanction was imposed. On the contrary, Armenia was getting much more support from some pro-Armenian politicians than Azerbaijan. As we saw, the only purpose of the Minsk Group activity was to freeze the conflict and keep our lands under occupation forever. So, we put an end to that policy and liberated our lands by force and by our political wisdom," Azerbaijani president said.