Karabakh's Azerbaijani community: Armenia's seeks to protract conflict

By Akbar Mammadov

Head of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Azerbaijani Community Tural Ganjaliyev has said that Armenia is not interested in the peace talks to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and seeks to preserve the status quo.

Ganjaliyev was commenting on the Armenian Foreign Ministry’ recent statements that Yerevan would not be engaged in the stage-to-stage resolution of the conflict, which requires the return of Azerbaijan’s lands around Nagorno-Karabakh as the initial stage.

Ganjaliyev said that Armenia hides behind negotiations and seeks to “gain time and strengthen the status-quo based on occupation.”

Ganjaliyev stressed that Armenia's refusal of the step-by-step solution, using security concerns as a pretext, completely undermines the negotiation process.

“It is impossible to talk about security in the context of the inability of the Azerbaijani community, which makes up one-third of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, to return to their homes. Therefore, one of the most important conditions for security is the return of the Azerbaijani community to their native lands", Ganjaliyev noted.

"Using the situation gained by the occupation and ethnic cleansing for their purposes, Armenia denies the existence of the Azerbaijani community in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and ignores the community's calls for peace and coexistence. Thus, Armenia destroys the prospects for resolving the conflict through negotiations,” he said.

Ganjaliyev also reminded that the parties to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict are Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“The Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in Nagorno-Karabakh are equally interested parties of the conflict, as established by the OSCE Helsinki Council of Ministers in 1992. The meetings and statements made during the OSCE Minsk Group's visits to the region in 2019 once again confirm this fact" he emphasized.

The community head stressed that it is impossible to change the accepted format of negotiations, and the attempt for this is provocation and disrupts the negotiation process.

"As for the security issue claimed by Armenia, it should be noted that in fact the biggest threat to security is the presence of the Armenian Armed forces in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Attempts to justify the occupation of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territories under the guise of self-determination are futile and nothing more than self-deception. As required by the world community, international organizations, first of all, UN Security Council resolutions, the Armenian Armed Forces must leave the territories of Azerbaijan and the expelled Azerbaijani population must return to their lands" Ganjaliyev said.

Furthermore, he urged the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs to take a firm stand on Armenia's recent actions, which contradict the basic principles of the negotiation process.

Ganjaliyev said that the illegal regime set up in Nagorno-Karabakh is a tool used by Yerevan to cover up the occupation. He reminded that the illegal elections held in the region in two rounds on March 31 and April 14 were condemned by the international organizations, including the OSCE Minsk Group itself, Non-Aligned Movement, the EU, NATO, and individual countries.