Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry advises Putin’s aide to avoid questions outside his competence
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded to statements made by Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation for negotiations with Ukraine, regarding the lack of real peace in the Ukraine conflict and the potential transformation of the region into a “huge Karabakh.”
“The statement made by Russian Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky in an interview with Russia Today on June 9, which contains a distortion of the facts regarding the past Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, as well as the presentation of Karabakh as a ‘disputed territory,’ is regrettable and shocking,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ayhan Hajizadeh said.
She expressed surprise that Medinsky “does not know that Nagorno-Karabakh has never been a disputed territory.”
“Questions also arise from the fact that the assistant to the president of the country, which was itself a co-chair of the Minsk Group, either does not understand or does not want to understand the official position of his state on this issue,” the Baku representative noted.
According to Hajizadeh, Medinsky “draws unacceptable parallels between Russia’s war against Ukraine and the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh.”
She stated that Azerbaijan “has never violated the territorial integrity of other states and has not waged aggressive wars against other countries,” and therefore, such comparisons are entirely incorrect.
Baku has advised Vladimir Putin’s aide to “refrain from making false statements on issues outside his competence that could harm interstate relations.”
Earlier, Vladimir Medinsky had stated that ending the conflict in Ukraine without achieving real peace could result in a nuclear war.
“If we stop the conflict along the front lines and do not agree on real peace, merely signing some sort of ceasefire, it will be, you know, like the disputed region between Armenia and Azerbaijan—Karabakh—this region will turn into a huge Karabakh. After some time, Ukraine, together with NATO, together with its allies, will join NATO, will try to return it, and this will be the end of the planet. It will be a nuclear war. It will be a nuclear war. Moscow does not want an excuse for a huge Karabakh not recognized by anyone, which could ignite a nuclear war. Therefore, we want to stop, sign full peace, and recognize the new territories,” Medinsky said.
