BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 31. The Republican Council of the Russian Community of Azerbaijan has issued a statement condemning the attempts of the Karabakh separatists to obstruct the dialogue of Baku with its citizens of Armenian origin and destabilize the situation in the region using the pseudo-Russian community of Azerbaijan's Karabakh region, Trend reports.
"While the Azerbaijani Government is making every effort to establish a peaceful dialogue with its citizens of Armenian origin living in the Khankendi city, where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily deployed, a group of separatists continues to obstruct this by making unfounded statements and misinforming the world community. Once again there was an attempt to play the political card of the pseudo-Russian community of "Nagorno-Karabakh", which made a statement that completely contradicts the basic norms of Azerbaijan's Constitution.
To begin with, there is no territorial unit called "Nagorno-Karabakh" in Azerbaijan. In accordance with the Decree of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the Karabakh and East Zangezur economic regions of the country were created. And such a notion as "Artsakh" never existed in the world, except only in the dreams of a separate group of separatists who settled on the territory of the sovereign Azerbaijan.
The residents of the Karabakh economic region of Armenian origin are citizens of Azerbaijan and must live under the official laws of our country. There is one Russian community in Azerbaijan, which was registered by the Ministry of Justice in 1993 and which today numbers more than 120,000 people. Our organization is recognized by all international structures and has been active for 30 years. If there are ethnic Russians among the Armenians of Karabakh who want to join the Russian Community of Azerbaijan, they should contact us to obtain membership in the organization. We are ready to respond to their requests and provide all the necessary information to join the organization.
In their statement, the so-called "Russian Community of Nagorno-Karabakh" speaks of Karabakh as the historical land of their ancestors. Karabakh has always been and remains a part of Azerbaijan. The territorial integrity of our country has been recognized by all countries and States, including the Russian Federation and even Armenia itself. While claiming the hard fate of their ancestors, the pseudo-Russian community of Karabakh forgets that before Armenia's aggression against Azerbaijan, representatives of all ethnic groups lived together peacefully and amicably. Azerbaijanis, including representatives of national minorities, were forcibly expelled from their native lands at the time of Armenia's occupation policy. National minorities were also forcibly expelled from Armenia itself. Today it is a mono-ethnic state, where no one but Armenians themselves live, while in Azerbaijan there are dozens of representatives of ethnic groups.
The Russian Community of Azerbaijan considers such statements as an attempt to destabilize the situation in the region, misinform the international community and slow down the process of integration of Karabakh Armenians into the multi-ethnic, multicultural Azerbaijani society".