Foreign

Foreign

Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to UN addresses letter to Secretary-General and Security Council concerning Serzh Sargsyanâ€™s remarks

17 February 2011 08:46 (UTC +04:00)

Washington. Isabel Levine â€“ APA. The Permanent Representative of Azerbaijan to the United Nations Agshin Mehdiyev addressed a letter to the Secretary-General and the Security Council concerning the remarks by President Serzh Sargsyan as well as ongoing violations of the ceasefire by the armed forces of the Republic of Armenia, APAâ€™s Washington DC correspondent was informed by the UN News Service representative.

â€œAs a result, during the months of December 2010 and January 2011 period two soldiers of the armed forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan were killed and two other Azerbaijani soldiers and one civilian were seriously wounded. Against this background, the high-ranking officials of the Republic of Armenia continued their bellicose statements, thus openly and deliberatively challenging the perspectives of the negotiated settlement of the conflict and provoking an escalation of the situationâ€, Mr. Mehdiyev noted in his letter pointing the 17 January statement of President Serzh Sargsyan.

â€œIn his statement, full of the usual historical falsifications and factual distortions, President Serzh Sargsyan made it absolutely clear that the official position of Yerevan in the conflict settlement process is based upon a fundamental and persistent denial of the generally accepted principles of freedom, justice and peaceâ€.

Ambassador Mehdiyev also mentioned the 27 January interview of president Sargsyan where Armenian president confirmed again that the Armenian side considers the conflict settlement process only as a means of achieving the annexation of Azerbaijani territories that it has captured through military force and in which it has carried out ethnic cleansing.

â€œIn other words, by insisting on unrealistic claims, Armenia pursues the poorly concealed object of discrediting the ongoing political process, at the core of which is the settlement formula based on putting an end to the illegal Armenian occupation, restoring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and ensuring the peaceful coexistence of Armenian and Azerbaijani communities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region within the Republic of Azerbaijanâ€, Mehdiyev said.

â€œIn another statement made the same day on the occasion of â€œArmy Dayâ€, the President of Armenia once again resorted to open threats through disgraceful and cynical glorification of his armed forces and their heinous crimes perpetrated in the course of the aggression against Azerbaijanâ€, Mr. Mehdiyev notes, adding that it is notable that, whereas the world unambiguously qualifies the behavior of the invading Armenian armed forces as â€œacts of particular gravity amounting to war crimes or crimes against humanityâ€, the head of the Armenian State regards the same acts as â€œglorious victoriesâ€, which paved the way for his â€œnationâ€™s and countryâ€™s road in modern historyâ€.

In his letter, Ambassador Mehdiyev also pointed out that not only is the Republic of Armeniaâ€™s role as the aggressor clear but the level of its continuing illegal control over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan entails State responsibility under international law.

â€œThe primary obligation upon Armenia is to cease its destructive policy of annexation and ethnic cleansing, renounce its attempts to discredit the peace process and ensure that the occupation of Azerbaijani territory is ended and that the inalienable right of Azerbaijani internally displaced persons to return to their places of origin is recognized and implementedâ€, he mentioned.