BAKU, Azerbaijan, July 28. The practice of interpreting issues related to Russian-Armenian relations in a manner that is related to Azerbaijan should be stopped.
This was announced by the spokesperson for the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Aykhan Hajizada, in response to a question from local media regarding the comments of the spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Karabakh region and the CSTO.
He noted that the views expressed by his Russian counterpart, Maria Zakharova, regarding the past Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict are a distortion of reality.
"The Karabakh region has always been recognized by the international community, including Russia, as an integral part of Azerbaijan. Therefore, the attempt to constantly keep the issue of applying the CSTO mechanisms to the sovereign territories of Azerbaijan, which had been occupied by Armenia for 30 years, on the agenda and linking it to whether or not the Karabakh region is recognized by Armenia, is not only contrary to the official position of the Russian side on the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, but is also completely unfounded.
Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty in accordance with the requirements of international law, and thus, the past conflict has been resolved. In this context, the practice of interpreting issues related to Russian-Armenian relations in relation to Azerbaijan should be put to an end," the Foreign Ministry official emphasized.
On July 27, the spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said during her speech at the "Gvardeysk" youth forum that "although Armenia called for the use of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) mechanism, the question was who and in relation to whom it would be applied.
Unfortunately, fortunately, it is known that "Nagorno-Karabakh" is not recognized by Armenia as either its own or an independent territory. In such circumstances, it was impossible to use the collective security mechanism of the CSTO," she said.
