Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend S.Agayeva / Azerbaijan will never allow any foreign mission entry into the occupied territories of Nagorno-Karabakh region via the neighboring countries, said the Press Secretary of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan, Khazar Ibrahim.
Commenting on the statement of his Armenian colleague Vladimir Karapetyan regarding the "unconstructive position of Azerbaijan who does not allow the mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) headed by the PACE Ad hoc committee on culture, Edward O'Hara, to visit Nagorno-Karabakh and Nakchivan Autonomous Republic of Azerbaijan via Armenia", Ibrahim said that the Azerbaijani side requires respect for its legislation and international law.
The mission was established in 2006 after Azerbaijan's appeal, requesting the organization of a mission to hold monitoring with regards to the destruction of Azerbaijani cultural and its historical monuments in the occupied Azerbaijani territories. Official Baku considers that the mission should hold investigations in Armenia and Azerbaijan, including the Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia.
O'Hara's visit has to take place at the end of August and beginning of September. "The visit of the PACE mission on monitoring of cultural monuments in South Caucasus is not linked with any problems. The issue is discussed by the Foreign Ministries of both countries and certain progressions are observed at the level of Foreign Ministers," O'Hara earlier reported to Trend.
The visit was postponed to an indefinite date.