First of all, I would like to thank Albanian Daily News for the willingness to publish my article in your newspaper. I think that an alternative point of view is always useful for a correct assessment of the real situation in our region.

I will not to delve into the rhetoric of the military-political leadership of Armenia, which since 2018, contrary to the resolutions of the UN Security Council, has openly declared the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan as a part of Armenia and threatened with new wars for the new lands. In 2020, Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and on November 9, a relevant statement was signed by the Heads of State and Government of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia.

After that, there were meetings and additional agreements both within the mentioned format of countries and with the participation of the leadership of the European Union. All these initiatives were mainly aimed at fulfilling the paras of the November 2020 statement, which serve the purpose of normalizing relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Unfortunately, during these two years, Armenia, despite the agreements reached, tried in every possible way to resist the full implementation of its commitments. There is only one reason of this approach - the retention of territorial claims against Azerbaijan. In other words, Yerevan tries, on its own or at the behest of its patrons, to maintain the status quo in the region with the hope of better times for itself.

In order to convince the West and the rest of the world of its “rightness”, Armenia propagates such myths as impossibility of co-existence of Armenians and Azerbaijanis, emphasizing to religious differences and xenophobia, the inevitable ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Karabakh, Baku’s desire to seize all its former historical territories, including the capital Yerevan, the threat of Azerbaijan-Turkey tandemin a broader interregional sense, and so on.

Naturally, these narratives are not convincing for the expert circles which are well aware of the situation in Azerbaijan and geopolitics of the entire region. If interested, on each of these myths I can present separate articles.

In order to dispel the fears of Armenia about Azerbaijan's intentions, in May of this year, Baku proposed to Yerevan the following 5 basic principles for the normalization of relations:

- Mutual recognition of sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of international borders and political independence of each other;

- Mutual confirmation of the absence of territorial claims of states against each other and a legal obligation not to make such claims in the future;

- Refrain from threatening each other's security in interstate relations, from using threats and force against political independence and territorial integrity, as well as from other circumstances incompatible with the purposes of the UN Charter;

- Delimitation and demarcation of the state border, establishment of diplomatic relations;

- The opening of transport and communications, the establishment of other relevant communications and cooperation in furtherareas of mutual interest.

These principles were accepted in words, because the international community would not have taken a different decision, but in fact were rejected by Armenia. The political elite of this country, and maybe not only this country and not necessarily from the region, does not want a peace treaty to be signed. The reasons in each case are separate, in terms of Armenia, this is mostly due to prevalence of domestic political interests over national ones.

With regard to the border events on September 13-14, the positions of the parties are known.

I will dwell only on the following position of the UN, expressed on this occasion on September 15 and which fully coincides with the position of Azerbaijan:

- Full implementation of the obligations of the tripartite Statement of November 9,

- The urgent need for delimitation and demarcation of borders in the framework of the recognition of territorial integrity and sovereignty,

- Signing of a lasting peace agreement.

In conclusion, I would like to stress that propaganda of Yerevan is far from serving the well-being of people of Armenia, while Azerbaijan, within the framework of inviolability of internationally recognized borders of both countries, strives for peace and cooperation with this country to reap benefits for both nations. Otherwise, Armenia will remain a self-isolated and extremely dependent country in all terms.

*Mr. Anar Huseynov is the Ambassador of Azerbaijan to Albania. The opinions expressed are the author’s only and, as in other cases, do not necessarily represent the views of ADN editorial line