Azerbaijani ambassador to France Elchin Amirbayov has highlighted the causes and consequences of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as he was a guest of local Radio Courtoisie radio channel.
Ambassador Amirbayov said the Armenian armed forces occupied Azerbaijan`s Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts, ousting over a million Azerbaijanis from their homes. He said Khojaly genocide committed in 1992 was the bloodiest atrocity committed by the Armenians against Azerbaijani civilians. The ambassador said that incumbent Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan is directly responsible for the brutal killing of 613 civilians in the town of Khojaly, including women, children and old people. “The Armenian President has confessed to his role in this in an interview with Western journalists.” The ambassador said that despite the UN Security Council adopted four resolutions demanding an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian military from Azerbaijan`s occupied territories, Yerevan has disregarded these resolutions for 24 years.“The status quo is unacceptable, and this has repeatedly been stated by the presidents of the three co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group,” said Ambassador Amirbayov, urging the co-chair countries to exert pressure on Armenia to change the status quo.
He said Azerbaijan`s military budget is eight times bigger that the state budget of Armenia. Nevertheless, the ambassador said, Azerbaijan wants the conflict to be solved peacefully through negotiations.
Amirbayov also drew the audience`s attention to Azerbaijan`s accomplishments in the fields of economy, energy, tourism, agriculture.
He said Azerbaijan has already become a platform of inter-faith and inter-civilizational dialogue. “Azerbaijan is a land of religious tolerance where representatives of different faiths co-exist in harmony as a family.”
The ambassador also spoke of Azerbaijan-France relations.
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