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Araz Azimov: â€œIt is important to settle Nagorno Karabakh conflict in order to go beyond â€œno war, no peaceâ€ situationâ€

27 December 2011 11:23 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. â€œAzerbaijan has been trying for two decades to solve the Nagorno Karabakh conflict through the Minsk Group initiative, there has so far been almost no progress towards resolving the disputeâ€, said Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov in his interview to â€œToday Zamanâ€ newspaper, APA reports.

â€œOn March 24th, 2012, we shall mark, with a sense of regret, the 20th anniversary of the founding of the Minsk Group. The international platform has reached no tangible results towards rectifying what Azerbaijan and Turkey both call â€œan Armenian invasionâ€ of land that historically belonged to Azerbaijan. Only then would we be able to go beyond this situation that is â€˜not quite peace and not quite war,’ but Armenia needs to be sincere in its cooperation. The removal of Armenian forces from the disputed region would be paramount for the start of negotiations, which would benefit Armenia significantly at a time when the country has lost half of its population. â€œArmenia would benefit greatly from an agreement since its economy does not look promising and its population is continuously shrinking. The Armenian nation is losing a very good opportunity to create momentum to try and remedy these issuesâ€.

Commenting on Azerbaijanâ€™s election as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Azimov said that this was the biggest victory in Azerbaijani foreign policy that has come in 20 years of independence: â€œIt is of course a huge responsibility, a huge duty, but we are ready to fulfill itâ€