The answer of Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian to the question of News.am news agency
Question: On 20 th November the MFA of Azerbaijan issued a statement with yet another groundless accusations against Armenia. What can you say about this?
Answer: This statement is yet another manifestation of apparent distortion of the situation, facts and documents.
The MFA of Azerbaijan has again attempted to falsify the essence of the UN Security Council resolution, deliberately omitting its clear requirement for the “immediate cessation of all hostilities”.
The primary and unconditional requirement of all four UN Security Council resolutions on the Karabakh issue of 1993 was the cessation of the hostilities and military activities. It was because of the non-compliance of Azerbaijan to the main requirement of these resolutions that made their implementation impossible. And it is at least ridiculous that Azerbaijan refers to those same resolutions the implementation of which failed because of itself.
It is necessary to reiterate that none of the UN SC Resolutions refers to Armenia as a party to the conflict. Armenia is only called upon “to continue to exert its influence” over Nagorno-Karabakh and the latter is apparently recognized as a party to the conflict, something that Azerbaijan continuously tries to ignore.
Azerbaijan has rejected the requirement of the Security Council resolutions on restoration of economic, transport and energy ties in the region.
Moreover, the resolutions of the UN Security Council urged to refrain from any action that would obstruct a peaceful solution to the conflict and to exert efforts to settle the conflict within the Minsk Group framework. And what has Azerbaijan done? Absolutely the opposite: after every resolution it launched new large-scale military activities.
Baku resorted to new provocations to undermine the negotiation process and the efforts of Armenia and the international community to resolve the conflict exclusively by peaceful means. It continuous to do the same today.
Obviously, it is the Azerbaijani authorities that have repeatedly violated the UN Security Council resolutions to comply with the principles of the international humanitarian law, something which they continue to do even today, the vivid example of which is the case of the crew of the shot helicopter.
By the provocative step of shooting down the helicopter, while on a training flight, Azerbaijan has blatantly violated not only the provisions of the UN Security Council resolutions, but also the trilateral agreements of 1994 and 1995 on the establishment and consolidation of the cease-fire regime, as well as numerous calls of the international community on strengthening of the ceasefire regime.
In accordance to the international commitments on confidence building measures, Armenia and Karabakh have notified through the OSCE channels and mass media about their intention to hold beforehand planned joint military exercises, unlike Azerbaijan which during recent months has held number of military exercises, including in the vicinity of the line of contact and has never informed about them appropriately.
Facing the reaction of the international structures, Azerbaijan tries to hide the absence of its arguments by futile allegations.
Baku continues to oppose itself to the international community which was once again demonstrated by its reaction to the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. Azerbaijan is clearly losing the sense of reality and day by day is deepening the gap between itself and the civilized world.
