This was stated by the Azerbaijani President’s Special Representative, Ambassador Elchin Amirbayov, in an interview with the Italian news agency Adnkronos during a working visit to Italy.
E. Amirbayov noted that achieving peace and tranquility in the region is possible, but only if Armenia “stops simulating its participation in the peace process and resumes constructive work on the peace agreement project presented to it by Azerbaijan more than a year ago, which is based on five fundamental principles of international law.”
The Azerbaijani President’s representative emphasized that the positive outcome of the negotiations “will largely depend on the level of sincerity of the Armenian authorities,” who, unfortunately, currently adhere to a duplicitous approach: “On one hand, they speak of a desire to complete work on a peace agreement, on the other – they have unleashed a diplomatic war against Azerbaijan.”
According to Amirbayov, the authorities of Armenia “abuse” various international platforms, such as the UN Security Council, the European Parliament, and even the European Union itself. Thus, Yerevan “not only distracts all interested parties from the main path to peace but also leads the process to a dead end,” believes the ambassador, clarifying that “Baku does not set any conditions” for reaching an agreement.
“However, I think that for the achievement of a final agreement, Armenia must demonstrate that it respects the commitments it has already taken on, that it will fulfill the promises given in the past,” he specifies, “I believe that Armenia must resume negotiations on the peace agreement project, but at the highest level, and stop trying to pursue its own narrow political goals through its allies on parallel tracks.”
The President’s representative rejected as absolutely groundless the claims made by the Armenian side of ethnic cleansings and genocide allegedly committed by Azerbaijan in the Karabakh region, accusing official Yerevan of trivializing these concepts while “the facts on the ground speak of the opposite.”
“It was Armenia that carried out the total ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population in all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in the early nineties, and as for the act of genocide, it was committed by Armenia on February 26, 1992, when the city of Khojaly, inhabited by Azerbaijanis, was completely destroyed, and the population, including women, the elderly, and children, was exterminated,” said Amirbayov, reminding that here “613 Azerbaijanis were killed in one night.” At the same time, Azerbaijan “respects the rights of all residents of the country, including ethnic Armenians living in the Karabakh region,” he emphasized.
E. Amirbayov also spoke about the extensive reconstruction works being carried out by the Azerbaijani authorities in the territories liberated from thirty years of Armenian occupation, on which the country’s government has already spent more than seven billion US dollars.
He also elaborated on one of the main problems Azerbaijan has faced in the course of post-conflict rehabilitation, namely the unprecedented contamination of the liberated territories with various types of mines and unexploded ordnance.
“Armenia has planted about 1.5 million landmines, and the number of victims on the Azerbaijani side is constantly growing. To date, after the ceasefire, the number of victims of Armenian mine terrorism in Azerbaijan amounts to 337 people,” he said.
