BAKU, December 28. /TASS/: Azerbaijan and Armenia are not far from concluding a peace agreement, and Baku deems it necessary to take results-oriented actions, Azerbaijani Special Presidential Representative Elchin Amirbayov said.
"What is important to understand is that, at this crucial stage in negotiations, where apparently we’re not that much far away from the final agreement, [is that] we do need a result-oriented exercise," Amirbayov said, as quoted by The Guardian.
Amirbayov recounted that Azerbaijan had proposed five basic principles that formed the basis of the draft peace agreement, namely: mutual respect for territorial integrity; sovereignty and inviolability of internationally recognized borders; renunciation of any territorial claims to each other now and in the future; renunciation of any actions contrary to the UN Charter, such as the use of force or threats; and the delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the opening up of road connections between the two countries.
Baku also wants the agreement to provide for some kind of dispute resolution mechanism, the Azerbaijani presidential spokesman noted. "Our preference would be to have peace agreements. An article which would speak about some kind of bilateral commission, which needs to be set up in order to address all those misunderstandings or differences in interpretations between us," he specified.
Referring to the issue of unblocking roads, Amirbayov emphasized that the transportation links between Azerbaijan’s main land mass in the east and its landlocked exclave of Nakhchivan in the west, which must traverse Armenia, are crucial for Baku in terms of national security, as well as providing an alternative route within the Middle Corridor (Trans-Caspian International Transport Route).
"Of course, we cannot force Armenia to implement what they had committed to, and it is nonsensical to suggest we would invade to impose this corridor through force or such like. So we have reached out to Iran as a plan B to build a link by road and rail through Iran," Amirbayov said. He added that the existence of an alternative route might "make Armenia to realize how much they may lose by continuing to resist the link going through its land."
