Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov rejected Armenia’s demand to provide exceptional security guarantees for around 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh before the new round of peace negotiations.
In an interview with Reuters, Bayramov said such a guarantee is unnecessary, and such a demand means interference in Azerbaijan’s internal affairs.
“We do not accept such a precondition for several reasons. The most fundamental is as follows. This is an internal, sovereign matter. Azerbaijan’s constitution and several international conventions to which Azerbaijan is a party provide all the necessary conditions to guarantee the rights of this population. “Ethnic Armenians can use and be educated in their language and preserve their culture if they integrate into the Azerbaijani society and state structures like other ethnic and religious minorities,” Bayramov stated.
