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Azerbaijan summons US envoy, hands note of protest

12 March 2018 12:32 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry has summoned US Ambassador to the country Robert Cekuta in connection with the US visit of Bako Sahakyan, who calls himself the “president” of the illegal regime created in the occupied Azerbaijani territories, and the event promoting the fictitious regime in the US Congress, Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry told APA.

Hajiyev said that Ambassador Cekuta received a note of protest, sent by Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the U.S. Department of State.

Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the US also held a meeting at the State Department to express the Azerbaijani side’s protest, the spokesman added.

The note reads that the fact that Bako Sahakyan, a resident of the Khankendi town of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has obtained a visa to enter the US territory by presenting false information with an Armenian passport and has been given a permit to hold events in corresponding US institutions aimed at propagating the illegal regime and raising funds in the US in order to aid the occupation of Azerbaijani territories runs contrary to the norms and principles of international law, the UN Security Council resolutions, bilateral documents signed between Azerbaijan and the US, and the US official position, Hajiyev said.

He added that this step by the US is regarded as an activity against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.

“The note also says that the US must fulfill its commitments in compliance with the norms and principles of international law and prevent any action in its territory aimed against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan. While the US and Azerbaijan have partnership relations in other areas, such a surprising step by the US is considered a biased attitude and a change in its position regarding the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the spokesman said.

The creation of opportunity for the entry of representatives of a fictional regime, created as a result of military aggression and bloody ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijan, into the US while the US introduces special sanctions against other separatist regimes in the post-Soviet area, is a manifestation of dual standards,” Hajiyev emphasized.

The US, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, must comply with the requirements of the relevant resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council and, in this context, try to withdraw Armenian troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and return Azerbaijani IDPs to their native lands, the spokesman added.

“On one hand, the US calls for a settlement of the conflict through negotiations, and on the other hand, creates opportunities for propaganda of the illegal regime and turns a blind eye to illegal acts in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, which raises serious questions about the impartiality and objectivity of the United States. This step of the US seriously harms the negotiation process, efforts to ensure sustainable peace and security and serves to escalation of the situation in the region,” Hajiyev noted.

He added that by taking such a step, the US has damaged the attitude of the Azerbaijani people and public towards this country.

“As a response to such behavior of the US, Azerbaijan will proceed from the principle of reciprocity in relations with the US,” Hajiyev stressed.