Interfax – Russia & CIS General Newswire
March 9, 2019 Saturday 6:15 PM MSK
Baku’s aggressive rhetoric not conducive to proper atmosphere for Karabakh negotiation, Yerevan says
YEREVAN. March 9
Yerevan took note of the increasingly fierce statements made by various Azerbaijani government officials recently in relation to a settlement of the Karabakh conflict, the Armenian Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan said.
“These statements emphasize the threat of the use of force, resolution of the issue through the use of force, which is worthy of condemnation. This is exactly what is reflected in the recent statement by the co-chairs [of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe]. This is particularly noticeable against the backdrop of numerous constructive statements made by Armenia sides, including its prime minister, which have remained without an answer from Azerbaijan,” Naghdalyan said in a statement on Saturday.
“The force factor was and remains on the agenda,” “the military factor occupies a special place in resolving the issue,”, “force breeds entitlement,” she said.
“When the prime minister of Armenia tells the European Parliament of the need for regional dialogue, tolerance and to introduce a culture of compromises, Baku is threatening with preparing the society not for peace but for other forms of conflict resolution.
“Such rhetoric, just as the maximalist claims sounded from positions that are far from constructive, are not helping create the right atmosphere for negotiations,” Nagdalyan said.
Armenia has repeatedly stated that such approaches were unacceptable, she said.
“Armenia has always stated its commitment to exclusively peaceful talks under the aegis of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen and prioritized the security of Artsakh [the Armenian name for Karabakh] and its status. Testament to this commitment is the fact that, since the velvet revolution in Armenia, not only has the peace process not stopped, it has become more dynamic. Forming the atmosphere of confidence, reducing risks, incident prevention mechanisms, and creating the atmosphere of confidence, as was reaffirmed in Dushanbe and at earlier summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg, remain a substantial necessity,” Nagdalyan said.
In the early 1990s Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh and seven areas as the result of a conflict with the region’s ethnic Armenians and with Armenia.
A ceasefire between Armenia and the breakaway Republic, on one side, and Azerbaijan, on the other, was introduced in May 1994.
Currently, peace is being negotiated by the OSCE Minsk Group set up in 1992 to find ways to settle the conflict peacefully. The group compromises Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland and Turkey and is co-chaired by Russia, France and the United States.
Azerbaijan does not see Karabakh as a party to the conflict and refuses to negotiate with it.