Azerbaijan was not ready for peaceful resolution of Karabakh issue, foreign minister says
YEREVAN, February 23. /ARKA/. Azerbaijan was not ready to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict peacefully and had been preparing for war for a long time, Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan told journalists in parliament on Tuesday.
He made the remarks in response to a question from a journalist that the solution to the conflict was close in 2018 and that was why ex-president Serzh Sargsyan decided to be nominated for prime minister.
Earlier, Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview that he agreed to become prime minister in 2018 to implement a compromise solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict proposed by Russia, the United States and France.
Under that plan known as the Madrid Principles, the conflict was to be resolved in phased starting with a gradual withdrawal of Armenian forces from all seven districts around Karabakh controlled by Karabakh Armenian forces since the early 1990s. In return, Karabakh was to receive an internationally recognized interim status and its final status was be determined in a future referendum.
“At different times there were periods of hope, when it seemed to everyone, including the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs that the parties were very close to an agreement and a solution to the issue through negotiations. This is not the fault of the co-chairs and not of Armenia, ”Ayvazyan said.
As an example, he pointed to the Kazan process, when the parties had already agreed on the main aspects, but Azerbaijan at the last moment came up with new preconditions.
On September 27, 2020, Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons.
After 44 days of the war, on November 9, the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities. According to the document, the parties stopped at where they were at that time. The town of Shushi, the districts of Aghdam, Kelbajar and Lachin were handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabachos with Armenia.
A Russian peacekeeping contingent was deployed along the contact line in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor. Internally displaced persons and refugees are returning to Karabakh and adjacent regions, prisoners of war, hostages and other detained persons and bodies of the dead are being exchanged.--0-
