BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 17. Azerbaijan is resolute to reintegrate its citizens of Armenian origin into its political, social and economic life, Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the OSCE Rovshan Sadigbayli said at a special meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council in response to the speech of Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Trend reports.
According to Sadigbayli, Azerbaijan is ready to guarantee equal rights to all its citizens regardless of their national or ethnic origin in accordance with the legislation and the Constitution of Azerbaijan.
"To this end, Azerbaijan has taken consistent and successful efforts to build interactions with local Armenian residents, thus solving important issues of water, transportation and energy supply in the region. These contacts need to be encouraged and sustained. However, Azerbaijan will not engage with such individuals as Ruben Vardanyan, who was sent to the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan to derail the fragile peace-building process," the permanent representative noted.
He added that, despite devastating consequences and unhealed wounds of war and occupation, it was Azerbaijan which, after the end of the conflict, initiated the process of normalizing inter-state relations with Armenia, based on five basic principles that include mutual recognition and respect for each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity within their internationally recognized borders.
Meanwhile, Ruben Vardanyan, a fugitive Russian billionaire of Armenian origin, the so-called 'State minister of Karabakh', disrupted environmental monitoring in connection with the illegal exploitation of mineral deposits, as well as the emerging environmental and other consequences of this on the territory of Azerbaijan, where the Russian peacekeeping contingent is temporarily deployed.
Previously, following the talks with the Russian peacekeepers' command on December 3 and 7, 2022, a group of experts from the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the State Property Service under the Ministry of Economy, and AzerGold CJSC were going to begin preliminary monitoring of the illicit mineral resource exploitation, as well as emerging environmental implications on Azerbaijani lands, where the Russian peacekeepers are temporarily deployed, on December 10, 2022.
The expert team was expected to inspect the environmental condition at the 'Gizilbulagh' gold deposit and the 'Damirli' copper-molybdenum deposit, monitor various areas, organize cadastral property records, assess potential risks and threats to the environment, as well as to underground and surface water sources.
However, when arriving in the monitoring area, the expert group, accompanied by Russian peacekeepers, faced provocations. The planned initial inspection and monitoring did not take place due to the fact that the Russian peacekeepers not only did not create necessary conditions and prevented for the entire process to carry on.