Azerbaijan had to implement reforms in a situation, when it got attacked by the neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said at the 48th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank in Baku May 4.
He reminded that as a result of Armenian aggression, now almost 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory is under occupation, one million of refugees and IDPs still suffer from the aggression.
“Our people were subjected to ethnic cleansing,” the president said, adding that the Armenian army and separatist forces committed genocide in Azerbaijan as well.
Despite the ongoing negotiations, Ilham Aliyev said that there no results, as international law is being brutally violated.
“It is unacceptable in the 21 century that one country occupies another country’s legal territory,” he said.
He went on to remind about the four UN Security Council resolutions, which require unconditional and immediate withdrawal of the Armenian forces from Azerbaijan’s territory.
“For more than 20 years these resolutions are not implemented,” he said. “This shows that the international law sometimes works selectively, due to political preferences and countries that have influence on world affairs.”
“Now we are in a situation of ceasefire with Armenia and we’re trying to resolve the issue on the basis of international law and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan,” he said.
The president reminded that the territorial integrity is the fundamental principle of international law, it cannot be changed by force, or without an agreement of government or people of that country.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council’s four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
/Trend/
