BAKU, Azerbaijan, September 28
Trend:
Any kind of statements that the conflict is not resolved are not only inappropriate, but very dangerous, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview to the French France 24 TV channel, Trend reports.
“My advice to those countries who say it is not resolved is to think about how they can provide a place on their own territory to settle Armenians and to create the second Armenian state on their own territory. Why should they think that there should be second Armenian state on the territory of Azerbaijan without any legal, political, and historical grounds? When I say the conflict is resolved, that’s my position, and I defend this position. The reality on the ground shows that this position is correct. Therefore, any kind of statements that the conflict is not resolved are not only inappropriate, but very dangerous. If it is not resolved, then those who say that they should say how it should be resolved,” President Ilham Aliyev said.
“What they understand when they say things like Nagorno-Karabakh? In which boundaries? In which area? In what form? There is no even a hint to answer those questions. Therefore, saying that the conflict is not resolved is counter-productive, and dangerous. It means that there should be other, maybe hostile actions in order to resolve it. And coming to your question about the autonomy,” President Aliyev said.
“The Minsk Group co-chairs know very well the position of Azerbaijan during the 28 years of useless negotiations that we were ready to provide Armenians in Azerbaijan with a certain level of self-governance, but Armenians always rejected it. They always said “no, only independence”. But now, when the conflict is over, they start to talk about autonomy which today is not on our agenda. Armenians who live today in Karabakh, in the area which is now under the responsibility of Russian peacekeepers, are citizens of Azerbaijan like any other representatives of different ethnic groups which live in our country,” the head of state said.