Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders discuss Nagorno-Karabakh in unprecedented debate

Duvar English

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan discussed the conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh in an extraordinary public debate at the Munich Security Conference.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met for a public discussion on Feb. 15 at the conference, which saw little visible progress toward resolving the more-than-30-year-old dispute.

"In order to talk about how to resolve the conflict, first we need to go back and look to the history of the issue. Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Azerbaijan. This is historical truth, and this is based on the international law norms," Aliyev said.

"United Nations Security Council adopted four resolutions demanding withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories. Therefore, any solution which will be achieved as a result of peaceful negotiation must provide preservation of internationally recognized territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," he added.

Pashinyan, in return, said that the international community is tired of hearing the same thing.

"Over the past 25 years, 30 years, we are repeating every time the same thing," he said, adding that he is the "first Armenian leader saying that any solution should be acceptable for Azerbaijani people as well."

As for the UN Security Council resolutions, Pashinyan said the general meaning of these documents was to unconditionally and immediately establish ceasefire, stop any violence and military actions.

"And if we will look at the UN Security Council Resolution 884, we will see that it is written there that Azerbaijan violated the ceasefire and as a result Azerbaijan lost territories. And first of all it is Azerbaijan that didn’t keep the conditions of the UN Security Council document. And this is very important to state," Pashinyan also said.