Azernews.Az

By Trend

The only reason for the existence of tension in the region today, and of a "frontline" between Armenia and Azerbaijan at all, is Armenia, which militarily occupied the internationally recognized territories of Azerbaijan, namely Nagorno-Karabakh and 7 surrounding districts, Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Leyla Abdullayeva told Trend while commenting on a statement made by the Armenian Foreign Ministry on the increasing tensions in the region.

Abdullayeva added that looking for another culprit in this matter is nothing but self-deception, as "the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, the members of which are comprised of the international community - including the three permanent member states of the OSCE Minsk Group -, and the resolutions of other organizations speak for themselves,” according to her.

“As long as the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia retain their presence in the internationally recognized territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the likelihood of the occurrence of such incidents is unfortunately to remain high. The only way to prevent such cases is to ensure the withdrawal of Armenian occupying forces from the territories of Azerbaijan,” Abdullayeva said.

Abdullayeva went on to say that while the Armenian Foreign Ministry claimed in a statement recently that "holding negotiations with one hand and opening fire with the other one" is not right, the Armenian side fired on the positions of the Azerbaijani border in the direction of the border patrol posts located in Azerbaijan’s Gazakh District and injured a soldier serving in the Azerbaijani State Border Service.

“It is apparent that Armenia, while keeping Azerbaijani lands under military occupation with the one hand, seeks to find pretexts for not furthering the negotiations with the other. I would like to bring to attention that the [Azerbaijani] Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov stated after the Washington meeting that the situation in the frontline was also not completely calm when the negotiation process on the settlement of the conflict was previously in progress and the main documents were being discussed, but that the negotiations continued irregardless,” she noted.

“The Azerbaijani side will never come to terms with the occupation of its lands, and this is something that the Armenian side should have understood long ago. Only the withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the territory of Azerbaijan and the return of the expelled Azerbaijanis to their homes will lead to the elimination of tension in the region, the restoration of lasting peace and prosperity," Abdullayeva concluded.

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