Baku reacts to Serzh Sargsyan's speech delivered in the United States

Baku has reacted to the speech made by Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Hikmat Hajiyev, spokesperson for Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry, told APA that "Sargsyan's speech lacks constructive ideas about Armenia's peaceful coexistence with its neighbors, renunciation of claims to territorial sovereignty and the future of the region". "Sargsyan's radical speech in the US was aimed at regaining the confidence of diaspora and providing the flow of donations into the pockets of the Armenian regime. In his speech, the Armenian president was forced to admit to himself that the Karabakh conflict would have been settled long ago but for determination and will of Azerbaijan," APA quotes Hajiyev as saying. Hajiyev added that the Armenian leadership should realize that the conflict can be settled only on the basis of "Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty within the internationally recognized borders".  

To note, in his speech delivered at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, Serzh Sargsyan said that Nagorno-Karabakh has nothing to do with the notion of territorial integrity of present-day Azerbaijan. He said that there are frequent speculations around the word "occupation" in the context of the Karabakh conflict.

"Without entering into the realm of history, I have to make a small observation here. Those that use the word 'occupation' often forget that Karabakh was a victim of occupation itself for 70 years. To all those who consciously or unconsciously use the word "occupation", I would like to ask: but "what was Karabakh's annexation to Azerbaijan in 1921 thanks to Stalin if not occupation? After receiving this generous gift, Azerbaijan, instead of creating normal conditions for the people of Nagorno Karabakh and using soft-power tools, created such unbearable conditions that the people of Nagorno Karabakh were the first to rise up immediately after the emergence of the first signs of weakening of centripetal Soviet power. Was it because of a happy life? The protests of 1988 were so powerful that the beginning of the collapse of the USSR is commonly associated with the Karabakh Movement," Serzh Sargsyan said. He noted that the people seeking to exercise their constitutional right under international and domestic law confronted weapons, violent force, and ethnic cleansing. 22 years have passed since the 1994 ceasefire but the people living near the state border of Armenia and in various parts of Nagorno Karabakh are still living under a daily threat of shootings, he added. Serzh Sargsyan pointed out that Azerbaijani regime abuses the combination of this conflict and the oil-and-gas revenues to justify domestic problems. "I believe such a behavior may be familiar from the theory of democracy and international relations. This is the reason why the Azerbaijani authorities are keen on maintaining tension along the border and presumptuously brag about it, publicly blame the mediators for inaction, and try to appear as a hero in front of their own people. They dub the proposal of the OSCE Minsk Group for security measures along the line of contact as "strange" and pretend to be surprised by such a proposal," Sargsyan said.