"As a matter of fact, each paragraph and each clause of such historic agreements is of great importance. During my conversation with President Steinmeier, I stated that Azerbaijan does not intend to overload this agreement, which is why it is a very concise agreement covering the main principles," said Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, as he answered the question of Silvia Stöber, correspondent of the German ARD TV channel during press statement with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, APA reports.
"Let me repeat that each issue is of serious importance. Experts, lawyers and representatives of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries worked hard on this document, and I do believe that both sides demonstrated good will. Otherwise, this document would not have been created. This is the first. Secondly, there are circles in Armenia and in the West that want to blame Azerbaijan for the agreement not being signed. This is completely unfounded. Because, as I have already mentioned, this process was initiated by Azerbaijan. It was Azerbaijan that developed the main principles, and we have been involved in these negotiations in good faith. If we were not interested in signing the agreement, we could have put forward unrealistic conditions so that Armenia would not accept it.
As for the most important of these principles, of course, this is Armenia's recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including Karabakh. Moreover, it comes from the Armenian government, whose head, back in 2019, declared at a rally in Khankendi, on Azerbaijani territory where he had arrived illegally, that “Karabakh is Armenia, period”. I have said several times that some are now trying to portray Armenia as a “peace dove”. But it is the same Armenian government that, after coming to power in 2018, nullified all the negotiations that had been held up to that point. It stated that Azerbaijan should conduct negotiations with the self-styled and illegal “Nagorno-Karabakh republic”. Not only did they fail to withdraw their groundless territorial claims against us, they actually tightened their demands even more. The minister of defense of this very government of Armenia openly stated that Armenia was preparing for a new war for new territories. In other words, it would be completely wrong and groundless to describe the current Armenian government and those leading it as a “peace dove”. The text agreed upon today shows that Armenia is forced to sign this peace treaty because of the Victory we won on the battlefield and because of the subsequent dominance of Azerbaijan’s position on the political level despite the efforts of some European countries standing behind Armenia. Since neither the UN Security Council nor the European Union took any restrictive measures against Azerbaijan, Armenia is forced to recognize Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory today. So, of course, this is the paragraph – a person who used to say that “Karabakh is Armenia, period” is now saying that “Karabakh is Azerbaijan”. I think this is a wonderful evolutionary process, and we welcome it," - President Ilham Aliyev said.
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