Azernews.Az

By Rashid Shirinov

Greek Ambassador to Baku Dimitrios Tsoungas was summoned to Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry in connection with the visit of Karen Mirzoyan to Greece.

Karen Mirzoyan introduced himself as the representative of the illegal regime created in Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, which is under Armenia’s occupation, Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on March 17.

The Azerbaijani side voiced its dissatisfaction and concern over this visit, which contradicts the memorandum, signed in 2014 between the two countries’ foreign ministries on cooperation in the issues of the European Union that reaffirms the commitment to sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders, said Hajiyev.

The envoy was proposed to inform Greek citizens about the illegality of visiting Azerbaijani territories occupied by Armenia that will lead to legal liability.

Tsoungas, for his part, reiterated that Greece supports territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan and promised to inform the officials of his country about the dissatisfaction and concern of the Azerbaijani side.

Besides, the Greek Foreign Ministry told the Azerbaijani embassy that Mirzoyan’s visit was of private nature and there were no meetings with Greek officials.

Hajiyev further voiced regret over the fact that the EU’s ban on visits of “representatives” of separatist regimes is applied selectively by some EU member states with regard to the regime, illegally established in the Armenia-occupied Azerbaijani territories.

“Mirzoyan and other “representatives” of this regime pay visits to foreign countries with diplomatic passports of Armenia,” the spokesman noted.

Such provocative visits are aimed at encouraging the so-called regime and damage the peace process and lead to an escalation of the situation in the region, added Hajiyev.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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