Ali Asadov: Azerbaijan is ready for peace with Armenia, but won't cede an inch of its land

Azerbaijan is ready for peaceful cooperation and the signing of a peace treaty with Armenia, but the sovereign territory of Azerbaijan is non-negotiable, Prime Minister Ali Asadov said at a meeting of the CIS Council of Heads of Government in Astana in response to the accusations of Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan.

Asadov noted that after the victory in the 44-day war, Azerbaijan announced that the Karabakh conflict was over.

"Azerbaijan has liberated its occupied territories and is ready to sign a peace treaty with the neighboring state. The five principles put forward by Azerbaijan were mainly supported by the Armenian side. Based on these positions, we tried today, within the framework of constructivism, to talk about the issues on the agenda. But the biased and gross distortion of facts voiced here by the Deputy Prime Minister of Armenia regarding my country forced me to take the floor again," the PM said.

"The country, which for 30 years kept the territory of a neighboring state under occupation, occupied seven regions that have nothing to do with the former Nagorno-Karabakh; the country whose armed forces left no stone unturned on the territory of a sovereign neighboring state, destroyed everything that could be destroyed - cities, villages, everything living and inanimate, ecology, moral, spiritual values, today speaks of some moments, alleged violations of the territorial integrity of Armenia by our armed forces," Asadov noted.

The prime minister brought to the attention of the members of the Council of Heads of Government of the CIS that the political establishment of Armenia during all these 30 years did not remember the concepts of sovereignty, borders, occupation, despite the four resolutions of the UN Security Council and documents of other international organizations.

Informing the meeting participants about the September provocations of the Armenian Armed Forces, the prime minister said that on the night of September 13, the Armenian armed forces fired on the Kalbajar and Lachin regions of Azerbaijan. "These are the areas from which Armenia left. But there is such a thing as "just leave." They also fired at another, the main part of the territory of Azerbaijan - Dashkasan, Zangilan regions. The armed forces of Azerbaijan have launched a counter-offensive operation. As a result, 71 Azerbaijani servicemen were killed. According to our data and according to the Armenian press, the losses of the Armenian side amounted to about 450 servicemen."

"I have said several times in the presence of the representative of Armenia that there are red lines for each state. Azerbaijan is ready for peaceful cooperation, for a peace agreement with Armenia. But we will not cede an inch of our land," Ali Asadov stressed.

"The head of the commission on delimitation of borders from Armenia today says that these processes are not going on. Azerbaijan has been participating in this process since the first day. Armenia has disrupted this process several times. We are ready to continue this process. The sovereign territory of Azerbaijan is non-negotiable. Karabakh is Azerbaijan! There is no Nagorno-Karabakh on the territory of Azerbaijan," he added.