“Although certain steps towards the normalization of Azerbaijan-Armenia relations were taken in the first six months of this year, unfortunately, there are no tangible results yet. Although a year and eight months have passed since the Patriotic War, unfortunately, Armenia has yet to fulfill the obligations it was forced to take upon itself,” said President Ilham Aliyev as he made a speech at a meeting dedicated to the results of the first six months of this year.
Report informs, citing AZERTAC, that the President of Azerbaijan emphasized that there were positive points in this direction, noting that the first meeting of working groups on delimitation had been held: “We see this as a positive step. This is something that took place on the initiative of our country because it was Azerbaijan that tried to take steps on the delimitation of the border as soon as possible. The Armenian side was not particularly inclined to do this. However, the first meeting was held. Of course, this meeting was more of an introductory nature. A second meeting is scheduled for next month. I believe that the second meeting will be devoted to the discussion of specific issues. Of course, we do not expect quick results from our cooperation in this format because delimitation is a long process. But in any case, this process has started, and we can consider it as a successful development.”
Describing as another positive event the fact that Armenia had accepted the five basic principles that would form the basis of the peace treaty at the initiative of Azerbaijan, the head of state said: “The Armenian leadership has officially accepted these five principles. The Azerbaijani public knows what these five principles are, so I won’t repeat them. However, this initiative of Azerbaijan was praised during my discussions with all the counterparts I was in contact with. It is possible to say that the resolution of the conflict on the basis of these principles has been confirmed. Armenia has accepted and officially recognized that. We have discussed this issue with several neighboring countries – Turkiye, Russia and Iran, and this position has received support. The European Union, the United States of America – we have discussed this issue with these partners as well, and the basis for starting peace talks has now been created. Again, Azerbaijan put forward the initiative, we are the ones who developed these five principles, and if we had not taken this initiative upon ourselves, there would have been no progress in this direction to this day.”
