By Aza Babayan
SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan (Azatutyun.am) — Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Friday, September 16, that Armenia must accept his terms of a bilateral peace treaty and open a land corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.
Speaking at a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Uzbekistan, Aliyev also blamed Yerevan for this week’s large-scale fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
“Azerbaijan presented Armenia with five basic principles of the peace treaty which are based on mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said in a speech. “We must now start [formal] discussions on the draft without preconditions and artificial delays.”
Those principles were first put forward in March. The Armenian government repeatedly said afterwards that they are acceptable to it principles but should also be complemented with other elements relating to Nagorno-Karabakh’s future status and security. Baku ruled out any talks on Karabakh, saying that Yerevan should recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh through the peace treaty.
Aliyev also reiterated Baku’s demands for the opening of the “Zangezur corridor” that would pass through Armenia’s southeastern Syunik province which also borders Iran.
