Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry has instructed the country's embassy in Italy to scrutinize possible operation of an Italian company in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region, Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev told Trend news agency on September 11.

According to Armenian media, the Italian company plans to sew outfits for Versace in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The "prime minister" of the separatist regime in Nagorno-Karabakh Arthur Aghabekyan said representatives of the Italian company will arrive in Khankandi, the center of the self-proclaimed republic run by ethnic Armenians in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, for consultation on September 11.

He said they are ready to provide them with facilities of 3,500 square meters in the premises of the former Karabakh silk industrial plant where four light industry enterprises are already operating.

According to him, the "government" of the separatist regime plans to create a light industry cluster on the basis of the former industrial plant.

Companies producing wool yarn and clothing as well as hand-made rugs and carpets already operate in the large premises of the former plant.

For 20 years Armenians have been plundering the natural resources of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

Representatives of the separatist regime deceive companies of foreign countries to cooperate with them in their illegal activities in the occupied territories.

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict for over two decades. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions. The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.

Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.