In an interview with ARMENPRESS, Mr. Zatulin said Armenia and Azerbaijan must reach agreement and compromise, which will be realistic and most importantly fair.
“I’ve said many times that justice requires to accept that Nagorno Karabakh will never return to be part of Azerbaijan. Recently I even talked about the fact that actually Azerbaijan was declared an independent state after the collapse of the Soviet Union and nobody paid proper attention to the fact that at that time, factually, the territory of Nagorno Karabakh was not under its control, meaning it wasn’t de facto ruled from Baku. It didn’t receive attention in Baku, which allows them now to announce that this territory belongs to them, however Nagorno Karabakh has not been part of independent Azerbaijan not even for a single day. And the justifications under which Azerbaijan is claiming the territories are vulnerable and unrealistic from the point of view of real politics”, Mr. Zatulin said.
At a February 19 meeting with EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the crisis in Georgia Toivo Klaar, Azeri defense minister Zakir Hasanov didn’t rule out the resumption of war at any moment. Asked whether the absence of necessary counter-responses from the international community to Azerbaijani statements doesn’t encourage sparking a new war, the Russian politician said:
“I believe that perhaps the international community is guilty for overlooking the endless statements of Azerbaijan, and in many statements depreciates what it’s saying, nevertheless I believe the 2016 events received an adequate assessment from the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. It is another issue that there was no clear public condemnation, it is a fact, but I think the Co-Chairs thought that by doing so they would’ve appeared in a quite difficult situation in the future negotiations process. I think they were guided by this when they gave a more equal response and didn’t directly accuse Azerbaijan for restarting military operations. However t...
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