Azerbaijan calls on Armenia to ‘accept reality’ following 2nd Karabakh war

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Azerbaijan on Sunday called on Armenia “to accept the reality” that emerged as a result of the 44-day conflict between the two countries and refrain from taking “aggressive steps and revanchist policies.”

"To label the return of Azerbaijani IDPs (internally displaced persons) to their homes as a ‘violation’ of the Trilateral Statement and ‘illegal settlement’ is yet another clear manifestation of hypocrisy by Armenia,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada said in a statement, in response to a statement by the Armenian Foreign Ministry the previous day.

Hajizada said that Armenia has acted in violation of international law and four UN Security Council resolutions by occupying Azerbaijani lands for nearly 30 years, and also “forcibly expelled about 1 million Azerbaijanis from their homelands, and brutally destroyed all Azerbaijani historical and religious monuments in the region.”

“This statement demonstrates Armenia's feature of racial discrimination and hatred,” he added.

The spokesman also said that the Yerevan statement, referring to Azerbaijani settlements with "fictional names," is “another manifestation of Armenia's territorial claims against Azerbaijan.”

It said that Armenia’s claim that Azerbaijan is not interested in a peace agreement is “another obvious example of deception.”

“With such statements, Armenia is trying to cover up its artificial delaying of the peace treaty negotiation process, as well as its recent blow to the process by refusing to attend the next round of negotiations in December 2022,” the statement added.

It further said that Armenia is “interfering” with the process of the reintegration of the Armenian residents in the Karabakh region through “provocations,” calling on the political leadership of Armenia to “act responsibly, to refrain from provocations, statements, and false rhetoric that undermine the opportunities for peace created in the region after the 44-day war.”

Relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan had been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

In the fall of 2020, during 44 days of heavy fighting, Azerbaijan liberated a significant part of Karabakh and a Russian-brokered peace agreement was subsequently signed, considered a triumph in Baku.