The joint opposition candidate for Azeri president, Rustam Ibragimbekov, is totally against the "arms rattling" and the statements advocating annihilation of Armenians.
Radio Azatutyun reports that in his interview with Georgian Times, Ibragimbekov qualified the Karabakh conflict as "Armenian authorities' aggression against Azerbaijan".
"I am totally against turning Armenians against Azeris and turning Azeris against Armenians. Sooner or later the conflict will be settled between the states, but the hostility between the nations will remain forever. I am totally against the "arms rattling" and the statements that Armenians should be annihilated. Conflicts should not be settled by weapons in the 21st century", he says.
On the other hand, Ibragimbekov is convinced that this situation benefits both the Azerbaijani and Armenian governments.
"They are just feigning attempts to resolve the conflict. In reality, they are making money on it. This is a source of power for them, a weapon they can use for military purposes at any moment. I think this problem must be solved by the peoples rather than the governments," Ibragimbekov said.
He said that if Azerbaijan becomes a truly democratic non-corrupt country and if the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis living in Nagorno-Karabakh are guaranteed equal rights, the conflict will become much easier to resolve.
"The Armenians are clever and pragmatic and if they see that the Azerbaijan-owned Nagorno-Karabakh is a better place to live in than the Nagorno-Karabakh owned by Armenia, they will live there as they did for centuries. Of course, this geopolitical knot depends on the great powers, who often solve such problems contrary to the interests of the concerned nations. But they too are watching what is going on here," Ibragimbekov said.