Azerbaijan Proposes to Supply Food and Medicine to the Region, But Artsakh Rejects It: Hajiyev's Interview

“For over thirty years, Armenia has occupied about 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized sovereign territory. Nearly one million Azerbaijanis who lived there were forced to leave their homes, becoming internally displaced persons in their own country,” stated Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, in an article published today in The National Interest.

Baku has once again demanded that Armenia recognize Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, abandon "territorial claims against Azerbaijan," and withdraw its armed forces "from Azerbaijan's territory," emphasizing that there is no other way. “Azerbaijan has also offered to supply food and medicine to the region via a shorter route, capable of servicing more than 17,000 vehicles daily. Both the European Union and the International Committee of the Red Cross have acknowledged that this route can be used; however, the proposal has been repeatedly rejected by the residents of Artsakh,” Hajiyev noted.

According to him, the road has even been paved at the instruction of the leadership of Artsakh, and that same leadership has even moved trucks across the Azerbaijani border through the Lachin checkpoint.

Hajiyev remarked that Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh are subjected to ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan, which is a falsehood that Azerbaijanis have learned to accept. However, it is crucial for the international community, especially the media, to recognize such emotional, shocking terms, which aim to obscure what is truly happening.

“The verbal statements of the Armenian authorities regarding the protection of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity should be formalized in a peace treaty. Azerbaijan has taken the first steps toward achieving peace; now the ball is in Armenia's court,” stated the assistant to the President of Azerbaijan.