BAKU, Azerbaijan, July
28. The practice of interpreting issues related to
Russian-Armenian relations in a manner that is related to
Azerbaijan should be stopped.
This was announced by the spokesperson for the Azerbaijani
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aykhan Hajizada, in response to a
question from local media regarding the comments of the
spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the
Karabakh region and the CSTO.
He noted that the views expressed by his Russian counterpart,
Maria Zakharova, regarding the past Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict are
a distortion of reality.
"The Karabakh region has always been recognized by the
international community, including Russia, as an integral part of
Azerbaijan. Therefore, the attempt to constantly keep the issue of
applying the CSTO mechanisms to the sovereign territories of
Azerbaijan, which had been occupied by Armenia for 30 years, on the
agenda and linking it to whether or not the Karabakh region is
recognized by Armenia, is not only contrary to the official
position of the Russian side on the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan,
but is also completely unfounded.
Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity and
sovereignty in accordance with the requirements of international
law, and thus, the past conflict has been resolved. In this
context, the practice of interpreting issues related to
Russian-Armenian relations in relation to Azerbaijan should be put
to an end," the Foreign Ministry official emphasized.
On July 27, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry,
Maria Zakharova, said during her speech at the "Gvardeysk" youth
forum that "although Armenia called for the use of the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) mechanism, the question was who
and in relation to whom it would be applied.
Unfortunately, fortunately, it is known that "Nagorno-Karabakh"
is not recognized by Armenia as either its own or an independent
territory. In such circumstances, it was impossible to use the
collective security mechanism of the CSTO," she said.
