YEREVAN, MAY 31, ARMENPRESS. The proposal to form a respective environment for the negotiations over the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict belongs to Armenia. The Armenian side cannot reject what exactly it has proposed, Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalyan said, commenting on the statement of the Azerbaijani foreign ministry.

Armenpress presents the text of Naghdalyan’s comment:

Question: The Azerbaijani foreign ministry issued a statement where it accuses the Armenian side in the murder of its soldier, concluding that the calls of the Armenian side on forming peace environment are fake and in reality Armenia wants to disrupt the negotiations. How would you comment on this?

Anna Naghdalyan: The proposal to form a respective environment for negotiations belongs to Armenia. The Armenian side cannot reject what it has proposed. The agreements reached in Dushanbe were directed for creating this environment and which are mainly maintained. Armenia and Artsakh adhere to their commitments.

As you know, Artsakh completely denied the Azerbaijani information about the killing of soldier, and before making accusations it would be right for the Azerbaijani side to carry out an internal investigation on the alleged incident to reveal the truth.  

In case of the existence of investigative mechanism for the ceasefire violations it wouldn’t be possible to spread disinformation about the ceasefire violations. It’s worth nothing that this mechanism doesn’t exist yet due to being rejected by the Azerbaijani side. In such circumstances we highlight the importance of strengthening the ceasefire and implementing the agreements reached at the 2016 Vienna and St. Petersburg summits aimed at creating an investigative mechanism.

It’s worth mentioning that Baku is releasing reports accusing the Armenian side in the murder of soldier during the visit of the Co-Chairs to the region. This is an attempt to distort the negotiation process and disrupt the upcoming meeting mentioned by the Co-Chairs.

By spreading such fake news Baku is trying to put the guilt of its unconstructive policy on the remaining parties of negotiations – Armenia and Artsakh.

This shows to what extent Baku is ready to respond to the mediation efforts aimed at solving the conflict, to what extent it is ready to continue and move forward the negotiations.

Armenia adheres to the commitment of its positive engagement in the peace process and will continue making efforts to create a respective environment through the implementation of the agreements reached.

Question: In line with the accusations addressed to Armenia, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry also mentioned about Armenians living there, about Azerbaijan being as a country of tolerance, as well as Armenia’s domestic political issues.

Anna Naghdalyan: It’s interesting that a representative of a country mentions about Armenians living its territory where the existence of not only Armenians, but also their surnames on the shirts of football fans of different nations is banned.

The intolerance existing today in Azerbaijan is a consequence of impunity of anti-Armenian massacres committed in Sumgait, Baku and other settlements and the policy of sowing hatred against Armenians, the culmination of which was declaring Safarov a hero and the Azerbaijani 2016 April aggression against Artsakh which was accompanied by terrible atrocities.

As for Armenia’s “domestic political problems”, we do not waste time to explain the elementary rules of the functioning of a democratic society.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan