‘Settlement in Karabakh demands work between Azerbaijan, Armenia’

MOSCOW (AA) – A lasting post-conflict settlement in the Caucasus territory of Karabakh demands work between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as no one else can solve their differences, Azerbaijan’s foreign minister said in Moscow on Friday.

Speaking at a news conference following a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Jeyhun Bayramov stressed that respect for the obligations one has made is “the best guarantor” for restoring peace in the region.

Under a January 2021 trilateral Azerbaijan-Armenia-Russia pact in the wake of the fall 2020 Karabakh conflict, Yerevan pledged to free occupied territories in Karabakh but then refused to do so, he said.

“It is necessary to take one’s obligations seriously, to take seriously the documents that you have signed, to take seriously the documents that you have signed under international law, and this is the best guarantor,” Bayramov stressed.

On Armenia’s calls to replace the Russian peacekeeping mission with the UN or an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) mission, he said it looks like “for Armenia it doesn’t matter who, as long as there is someone.”

“We believe that this situation and post-conflict settlement require work, first of all, on behalf of Armenia and Azerbaijan. No one will solve this problem for us … We must take our obligations seriously,” he stressed.

The two former Soviet states of Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a 44-day war in fall 2020 over Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

The war, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal, saw Azerbaijan liberate several cities and over 300 settlements and villages that had been occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.