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FM Mammadyarov: Armenian troopsâ€™ withdrawal from Azerbaijani territories key to political settlement of Karabakh conflict

09 February 2018 08:56 (UTC +04:00)

The continuation of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia and the presence of Armenian troops in occupied Azerbaijani lands pose the biggest threat to peace and security in Azerbaijan and the region, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said in an interview to Le Journal du Parlement, a French parliamentary magazine, during his visit to France, APA reports.

He said that during the Second World War, as between Germany and France, trenches were dug and soldiers stationed along the line of contact on the occupied territories.

"The Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has resulted from military aggression and occupation. The aggressive separatism, which began in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the late 1980s and was followed by terrorist acts, took the form of open military aggression by Armenia against Azerbaijan after the collapse of the USSR,” said Mammadyarov.

By occupying the Nagorno-Karabakh region and surrounding districts, Armenia committed ethnic cleansing against more than one million Azerbaijanis, he stressed.

“The untimely prevention of aggressive separatism, the manifestation of double standards led to today's tragedy. Therefore, serious measures are needed to be taken against the growing separatist sentiments in Europe and also to prevent them,” said Mammadyarov, calling for a decisive and unequivocal attitude towards all forms and manifestations of separatism.

The top diplomat described UN Security Council's four resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884, adopted in 1993, as the demonstration of a resolute and unequivocal position by the international community on Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan.

“The UN resolutions reaffirm Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and inviolability of its borders, recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan, and demand an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied Azerbaijani territories. These resolutions form the basis of the mandate of the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, which includes France,” he added.

In order to achieve progress in a political settlement of the conflict, the withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijan’s occupied territories must be ensured and the factor of military risk must be eliminated, Mammadyarov underlined.