In an interview with local media Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev explained how a peace treaty should look like. He recalled that after the end of the Karabakh war, a vacuum was created, and no one knew what would follow, since the situation was unique situation.
"And then it was the Azerbaijani side that proposed to fill this vacuum, there probably should be a peace treaty. In any case, negotiations must begin. Then we formalized the well-known five principles, on the basis of which the negotiations actually began",
Ilham Aliyev said.
The Head of State emphasized that from the first day Azerbaijan was against the principles being supplemented with a topic related to Karabakh, while Yerevan and some other countries tried to include this issue in this agenda.
Ilham Aliyev said that Karabakh was an internal matter of Azerbaijan, and a future peace agreement should be an agreement between countries. He also noted that the agreement should consist of 5-10 pages, and not 5-10 volumes, which must include the principles of international law.
At the same time, the President added, the negotiations held for some time were not particularly encouraging, since Yerevan and the countries behind it wanted to include the issue of the status of Karabakh in the principles of the peace treaty.
"I believe that after some time, the real situation, our steps and position, including the location of the status as indicated by me, led to some changes in their position. Both Armenia and its patrons tried to include not questions of status there, but questions of "the rights and safety of the Armenians living in Karabakh",
Ilham Aliyev said.
The Head of state recalled that Baku, in turn, raised the issue of securing the rights and security of Azerbaijanis who had been expelled from Armenia. He clarified that everything should be mutual, and here the argumentation of the opposite side was extremely illogical.
"We were told that those people had been expelled 30 years ago, and these people were here. In other words, they do not have equal rights. Actually, it was a racist approach. Our position remained unchanged: either this issue will not be reflected in the peace treaty, or the rights and security of both peoples will be reflected in the document. This was the main reason why the negotiations were so ineffective",
Ilham Aliyev said.
The President stated that after the September events, a new situation had arisen, since the topic of Karabakh and the Karabakh Armenians had already been excluded, and real conditions for signing a peace agreement appeared after Azerbaijan's anti-terrorist measures. In addition to this, he believes that active work on the text is currently necessary.
The Head of state also said that Armenia wanted to have guarantors of the peace agreement. He stressed that there was no need for this, since the agreement would be signed by two sovereign states. Aliyev said that Azerbaijan was not against third-party assistance, but in this case no guarantors were needed.
However, the President added, assistance should not be mandatory. In addition to this, he spoke out against geopolitical rivalry, as today some countries compete for the right to host negotiations. Aliyev noted that he does not want to see the transformation of relations between Baku and Yerevan into a geopolitical confrontation.
"This is an issue between our two countries, we must resolve it ourselves. If we come to an agreement, a peace treaty will be signed. If we don’t reach an agreement, then the negotiations will either be continued or stopped. Both options are possible",
Ilham Aliyev said.
