Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has responded in Sochi to the statement made a month ago by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that “Artsakh is Armenia, period.”
“Armenia itself does not recognize that illegal formation; Karabakh is historically Azerbaijani territory, so Karabakh is Azerbaijan,” Aliyev said during his speech at the Valdai conference.
In his speech, the Azerbaijani president naturally also referenced the statement made the previous day by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that the “Karabakh is Armenia” statement does not contribute to forming an appropriate atmosphere for starting political dialogue. Aliyev said that Russia has already voiced its corresponding assessment of Pashinyan’s statement.
Ilham Aliyev also addressed the Armenian prime minister’s repeated statement that the settlement of the Karabakh issue must be acceptable to the peoples of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Nagorno-Karabakh: “There is no such concept as the people of Nagorno-Karabakh; there is the population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which before the conflict consisted of Azerbaijanis and Armenians who had equal rights.”
