Foreign media
Newsday program on BBC World Radio aired an interview with Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to the United States Elin Suleymanov. The ambassador pointed out that Armenia should withdraw its troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan in line with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. He said lasting peace in the region is possible only after Armenia ends the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. The diplomat also recalled that Armenia carried out the policy of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
Asked about the deaths reported among Armenian civilians, Ambassador Suleymanov said that the part of the contact line under the control of Armenia is occupied and uninhabited by Armenians, this territory is mainly militarized.
On the contrary, the densely populated Azerbaijani side of the contact line regularly comes under fire from the Armenian army. The ambassador informed that more than 14 Azerbaijani civilians were killed and more than 40 were injured during the recent provocations. He drew attention to the fact that these provocations were carried out by Armenia in the international sovereign territories of Azerbaijan.
In response to allegations that Azerbaijan receives military aid from other countries, especially Turkey, an Armenian aircraft was shot down by a Turkish F-16 fighter, and Azerbaijan recruits Syrian mercenaries into the army, the ambassador stressed that Azerbaijan does not possess F-16 fighters. He also said that Turkey is not involved in the military conflict, and Ankara always provides diplomatic support to Baku. He also dismissed the allegations of the involvement of Syrian mercenaries as unfounded.
To the question about the possible return of parties to the negotiation table, Ambassador Suleymanov said that the 20-year-long negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group have not yielded any results.
"It's very important that the United States insist as a co-chair of the Minsk group that the international law is upheld," the Azerbaijani diplomat told Newsweek, "and on the Armenian withdrawal from the occupied territories," Suleymanov said the interests of both countries would be served by Armenia's withdrawal. "That's not just in the interest of Azerbaijan, of course, it is," he said. "But it is equally in the interest of Armenia because that will ensure its peaceful future."
In addition, in an interview with the popular John Batchelor Show, Elin Suleymanov drew attention to the continued military provocations by Armenia, and the number of people killed and injured as a result of the shelling of areas inhabited by civilians. The diplomat emphasized that the Azerbaijani Army is conducting an operation within the country’s internationally recognized borders.
“We have no military goals in the territory of Armenia,” the ambassador quoted the President of Azerbaijan as saying.
Referring to false information disseminated by some international media outlets, Suleymanov stressed the inadmissibility of such cases.