BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 14. Azerbaijani Parliament's Chairperson Sahiba Gafarova has responded to the false and unfounded statements of the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Alen Simonyan about Azerbaijan at a briefing dedicated to the results of the 55th plenary session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS Member States, held on April 14 in St. Petersburg, Trend reports.
Gafarova noted that the representative of Armenia, which during the 30-year occupation of the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan destroyed our forests and reserves, illegally exploited our natural resources, and polluted the land and rivers, has no moral right to talk about any "environmental concern" regarding the sovereign territories of Azerbaijan.
Moreover, the Chair of the Milli Majlis (Azerbaijani Parliament) noted that for some reason the Armenian side is silent about the fact that the International Court of Justice completely rejected Armenia's claims and found them unreasonable regarding the protests on Azerbaijan's Lachin road. The court's decision is also consistent with Azerbaijan's position on the inadmissibility of using the road for illegal military and economic purposes.
Gafarova pointed out at the briefing that the absurdity of the Armenian speaker's claims is that these claims against Azerbaijan were put forward by a representative of a country that implemented ethnic cleansing and mass killings during the 30-year period of occupation, forced almost one million Azerbaijanis to leave their native lands, destroyed all historical and religious monuments of the country.
She also highlighted that the claims against Azerbaijan regarding the "occupation of the sovereign territory of Armenia" are completely groundless. As a country that has occupied 20 percent of the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan for 30 years and still holds seven villages of the Gazakh district and the village of Karki of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic under occupation, Armenia should return to the negotiating table and continue to work towards peace treaty, including the delimitation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian border.