Azerbaijan wants to establish normal relations with Armenia based on mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of both countries, Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with the Spanish EFE News agency.
We are ready to start immediately the process of delimitation of our borders. And, of course, after that process is ended-demarcation. We also express willingness to start to work together with Armenia on the future peace agreement. All these initiatives have been articulated many times by me and by other Azerbaijani officials, but unfortunately, have not been yet positively responded by the Armenian side. So our position is unchanged and there are certain steps, but I think during this year we could have made much bigger progress," the head of state said.
Once again he noted that Nagorno-Karabakh no longer exists, therefore it makes no sense to talk about the status of this territory. "On many occasions during the almost 30 years of negotiations. Azerbaijan’s position was very constructive and we were saying and the Minsk Group co-chairs know it very well that we were ready to grant Armenians living in Azerbaijan a certain level of self-governance. But this position was always rejected by Armenia and they were always demanding independence for what they called Nagorno-Karabakh. But today after the war ended, and the conflict has been resolved, and this is not only my position, this is the position of the majority of the world international community, there is no room to talk about any status for the so-called entity which does not exist. Because Nagorno-Karabakh does not exist," Ilham Aliyev noted.
According to him, there is no such administrative unit on the territory of Azerbaijan. "On 7 July this year I issued a decree about the new configuration of economic zones of Azerbaijan and we have created two economic zones: Karabakh and Eastern Zangazur economic zones which cover all the area. About 25 thousand ethnic Armenians who live today in the Karabakh area, in the area which is now the responsibility of Russian peacekeepers, are our citizens. They will enjoy the same rights and privileges and responsibilities as any other citizen of Azerbaijan of different religious and ethnic origins. So, to put it shortly, no way to go back to the status, no status and everybody should forget this issue," the head of state pointed out.
He also spoke about the situation with prisoners of war and demining of the liberated territories. "I have on many occasions referred to international law norms, international conventions, about who can be considered prisoners of war? And according to international conventions, those persons who have been detained or captured during the phase of the war and those persons whom we detained during the war all have been returned immediately after the war ended. We actually returned them earlier than Armenians returned our prisoners. Those people who are now in detention and already sentenced whom Armenia and some others claim as prisoners of war do not belong to this category because these people have been sent to liberated territories at the end of November. More than two weeks after the war ended, more than two weeks after Armenia signed a capitulation act and they have been detained on the territory which we liberated at the beginning of December. 62 persons and some of them committed crimes, they attacked our military servicemen and killed four of them. So, they are not prisoners of war. They are terrorists, they are members of a sabotage group who’ve been sent in order to attack Azerbaijani civilians and military servicemen. Despite that, we have returned some of them during this period, and that was a sign of goodwill," Ilham Aliyev said.
In addition, he pointed out that Armenia has laid hundreds of thousands of mines in the formerly occupied territories. " in the beginning, when we were demanding to give us these maps Armenian government on a very high level were saying that they do not have it. And during the time since the war ended, during this almost one year, we had close to 150 casualties of civilians and military servicemen who either were killed or seriously injured due to the fact that Armenians do not give us the maps. Some maps have been given relatively recently but the accuracy of those maps is only 25 per cent. So what we are demanding is that Armenia gives us accurate maps, the map which can be easily identified not the area where they are planted, they are planted everywhere, but a particular place. They have this particular information which they refuse to give us. If they do it, if they show the goodwill, of course, we will respond adequately," the Azerbaijani president said.
