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“Next year people of Nagorno-Karabakh will mark 30 years of their struggle for the right to choose their destiny, for human dignity and freedom. In three decades people of Artsakh despite the devastating war and all difficulties, succeeded to create a society based on the respect of human rights, fundamental freedoms and democratic institutions,” Armenia’s Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian stated today at the 24th Meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council, adding the settlement of the conflict should respect all inherent rights of the people of Artsakh and should ensure their unhindered implementation.

In Nalbandian’s words, on numerous occasions Armenia has reiterated its readiness to continue negotiations based on the accepted principles and elements with the aim of the exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict. “Azerbaijan’s uncompromising and maximalist stance has become a serious obstacle to the advancement of the peace process and has heavily contributed to the preservation of the status-quo. The Co-Chairs’ conflict settlement proposals are a way that could bring to the change of the status-quo. However, Azerbaijan rejects those proposals, doing everything to keep the status-quo intact at the same time claiming that allegedly it is advocating for the change of status-quo,” added Nalbandian.
Nalbandian pointed to number of reasons, obstructing the peace process despite numerous meetings on the presidential and ministerial levels, including,  the selective approach by Azerbaijan towards the elements proposed by the Co-Chairs, Baku’s failure to comply with the reached agreements and backtracks from them, constant profanation of the Co-Chairs’ efforts and the attempts to shift the mediation to other formats the use or threat of use of force by Azerbaijan, regular ceasefire violations and provocations, the April aggression launched against Artsakh, as well as the refusal to implement the agreements reached during the Vienna and St. Petersburg summits.

“Azerbaijan continues to practice anti-Armenian hate speech, it calls all Armenians of the world its enemy number one, it writes in the textbooks that Armenians are genetic enemies of Azerbaijan, it erases all traces of indigenous Armenian cultural heritage and religious sites, it claims that allegedly territories of Armenia are ancient Azerbaijani lands. Azerbaijan has long blacklisted the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, and then it started to put in the blacklist all those who visit Nagorno-Karabakh. Those who genuinely aspire for peace do not do such actions,” Nalbandian stated.

The Armenian FM however noted that yesterday’s meeting with my Azerbaijani colleague generally passed in the positive mood. “We will see the developments after it,” said Nalbandian.