Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Lithuania and Romania visited Azerbaijan under the mandate of the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Joseph Borell on June 25 to discuss post-war situation and regional cooperation.
During the meeting held with the EU officials, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reiterated his country’s commitment to reconciliation with Armenia following the end of the war in autumn 2020.
“We want to move from post-conflict situation to peaceful development and cooperation in the South Caucasus. Unfortunately, so far we have not heard something similar from Armenian government. All our statements with respect to beginning negotiations on peace agreement with Armenia are ignored by Armenian government,” Aliyev said.
Reminding anti-Azerbaijani statements made in Armenia during the pre-election campaign in this country this month, Aliyev expressed hope that “now that elections are over in Armenia, we hope that there will be a positive response.”
The president stressed that without the peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, there can be no peace in the South Caucasus region.
“Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved. There is nothing to negotiate about that. The trilateral statement which was signed on 10 November is not only a ceasefire agreement as some international politicians want to present it,” Aliyev said.
Speaking about the pre-war situation, Aliyev reminded that Azerbaijan was always committed to peaceful settlement of the conflict with Armenia and had been involved in the process of negotiations for 28 years since the OSCE Minsk Group started mediating the conflict.
Aliye said Armenia derailed the negotiations process and sought to preserve the status quo by keeping Azerbaijani territories under occupation.
“I held negotiations with 3 leaders of Armenia, and I can tell you that this was a very negative experience in any kind of negotiations held globally, because we clearly realized after many years of this useless meetings that Armenia didn’t want peace.”