BAKU, Azerbaijan, December 9. During almost three years of negotiation process, Armenia always wanted to incorporate into peace agreement a provision with respect to the Armenian minority in Karabakh. Our position was that this is our internal business, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Euronews channel, Trend reports.
“If they want to reflect the issue of Armenian minority in Azerbaijan, then, let us reflect the issue of Azerbaijani minority in Armenia, which was expelled thirty years ago. And, there were much more Azerbaijanis in Armenia than Armenians in Azerbaijan - almost 300,000. So, our position was that it must be reciprocal. Either we reflect these two issues of national minorities, their rights and security, including the right to return not only Armenians to return to Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijanis to return to Armenia. It doesn't matter that Azerbaijanis were expelled 30 years ago, and Armenians decided to leave two months ago. The fact is just it must be reciprocal, or we do not comment in our peace agreement about this issue. So, until now, we did not get from Armenia any clear understanding on that. So, if Armenia agrees to have either the same language for both national minorities or not to reflect it at all, then the peace is reachable, because this was a main obstacle for Armenia, when they were negotiating with us. So, we will see how it goes. Frankly speaking, I don't see now any serious obstacle to sign a peace agreement from a logical point of view,” the Azerbaijani leader added.