"We continue to receive evidence from the Azerbaijani side that the Azerbaijani narrative called West Azerbaijan is a direct territorial claim, or it is an ambition, or it implies a violation of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia."
Answering this"Haykakan Zhamanak" -to the question, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, stated: "It would be good if the RA Prime Minister received the representatives of the West Azerbaijan community. as far as I know, they are ready to go to Yerevan as well," RA Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said.
He continued:
"Even starting from the name, if we look at West Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan is the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan, calling the territory of Armenia West Azerbaijan already speaks of Armenia's territorial integrity ambitions, they even have their own structure, the West Azerbaijan Community.
Please pay attention, not the Azerbaijanis of Armenia, not even the Azerbaijani refugees from Armenia or any other community, but the community of Western Azerbaijan.
And this organization not only with its statements, but even in its statutory documents, very clearly indicates, and their statutory documents imply, threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia. So, this is another fake and ambitious project sponsored by the directly, and they do not even hide it, in fact, by the authorities of Azerbaijan."
Mirzoyan emphasized that Armenia never hid that Azerbaijanis lived in Armenia during the Soviet period, and they were removed from Armenia along with the process of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"But I want to highlight and emphasize a very remarkable and indisputable circumstance. First of all, the vast majority of Azerbaijanis left Armenia, that is, the opposite is just a unique exception, in a fairly civilized way, I can even give numbers. 100 families were able to sell their apartments, it is impossible to imagine such a thing during deportation or forced displacement.
Can you imagine, 100 families just sold their apartments, if I remember correctly, more than 12 thousand families were able to exchange their apartments with Armenians living in Azerbaijan, and more than 160 thousand people, Azerbaijanis, who left Armenia, received compensation from the Armenian government, therefore the rights here are sold out.
We can take a parallel to the 500,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan, if we count Nagorno-Karabakh as well, and remember their fate, remember the Baku pogroms, the Sumgait pogroms, the other persecutions, and all this that I am saying is a fact, a documented fact. both the compensations we gave, about which there are documents, and the massacres of Armenians in Azerbaijan, and there were trials about this even in the last period of the Soviet Union, etc., the minister emphasized.
Referring also to the question, has there ever been such a discussion with the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides, Mirzoyan emphasized:
"Such a question is not on our agenda."
