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“Lavrov made it clear that NKR conflict is not an internal issue for Azerbaijan urging the Azerbaijani authorities to stop making speculations and covering the essence of the issue through manipulations and blackmail,” NKR President's Spokesperson David Babayan told the aforesaid to Panorama.am turning to the announcement of Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey  Lavrov. He added that the statement is of paramount importance as it calls on Azerbaijan to refrain from considering the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as its internal issue.

“Today numerous processes regarding the self-determination of the nations are underway worldwide and it occurs to no country to consider them as “internal affairs”,” Babayan noted adding that a large number of cases of self-determination of nations come to prove that the right of nations to self-determination does not contradict the principle of territorial integrity.

“The cases of Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Eritrea and some others emphasize that the principle of territorial integrity cannot hinder the process of realizing the right of self-determination of the nations,” the spokesman noted.

Lavrov’s announcement was also aimed at delivering the message that the issue of the settlement of the conflict cannot be discussed without tackling the one of the self-determination of the nations. This might also be considered as a unique message from the Minsk Group Co-Chars.

In the words of Babayan Azerbaijani destructive policy creates a hard situation for the Co-Chairs, as the country keeps violating the ceasefire and fails to fulfill the agreements.

“We have always stated that harsh responses are necessary. The Co-Chairs realize that the Azerbaijani provocation cannot continue any longer. Thus they try to show that even if no option for the settlement of the NKR conflict is mandatory, there are reasonable approaches that must not be ignored as it leads to the violation of the international law,” he noted.

Turning to the reactions of Baku, Babayan noted that Azerbaijan naturally assessed Lavrov’s announcement as negative.

“Baku tries to give a subjective interpretation to Lavrov’s statement claiming that Lavov has a bad attitude towards Azerbaijan. In this way they just try to deal with this “cold shower”,” he concluded.