As www.aravot.am has already informed, yesterday Elmar Mamedyarov, the Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, made speeches at the annual plenary meeting of the UN General Assembly. Both of them talked about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, which should be achieved only in accordance with Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Also, the Azerbaijani Minister of Foreign Affairs called Armenia an “occupant” as if Yerevan disrupted the meeting of the two sides proposed by the European organizations.
We asked Stepan Safaryan, the secretary general of the Heritage Party, to comment on the two above-mentioned speeches. He said during a conversation with us, “Certainly, such speeches were expectable. There is nothing novel in the Turks’ and Azerbaijanis’ statements and they obviously had to use the UN platform to accuse Armenia of aggression and occupation once again. In this regard, I just think that they wouldn’t have had such a big mouth, if we, Yerevan, had made absolutely different kind of accusations regarding Safarov’s extradition. The countries, which are not only behind the deed committed by Ramil Safarov, but also behind his extradition, shouldn’t have had the right to speak like that from the UN platform. Armenia should have been the accuser, not them, since what Turkey and Azerbaijan have done to increase tensions in the region has specific purposes and one of those steps was to jointly see through Safarov’s extradition. And if concrete accusations had been made in this regard, the speeches of Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s ministers would have been considered in a different light and they wouldn’t have had such a big mouth.”
As for calling Armenia an “occupant” and accusing it of deadlocking the negotiations, Mr. Safaryan said, “It is a lie and one should prove that the one who has always deadlocked the negotiations is Azerbaijan. By the way, Ramil Safarov’s extradition aimed at striking a blow to those negotiations realizing quite well what the reaction of Yerevan would be like, that Yerevan would reject negotiations and one would manage to squeeze Turkey into the negotiation format. One should have talked about all this and showed this connection.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
