Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova who is in Russian Federation on an official visit made an extensive overview of Armenia’s military and political provocations as she took the floor at the 55^th plenary meeting of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly on 14 April.

It is clear that Armenia is abusing its current hosting of the European Union mission and is following a course of deliberately inflaming the situation in the region, said Ms Gafarova. Armenia’s armed forces and illegal Armenian armed groups continue violating the ceasefire regime along the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and in the temporary deployment areas of the Russian peacekeepers within the Azerbaijani territory, and this leads to human casualties. At that point, Mrs Gafarova brought to the listeners' attention the Armenian border provocation which had cost three Azerbaijani servicemen their lives three days ago.

A few days ago, The Armenian side detained two Azerbaijani servicemen having gone missing on the border; videos showing their physical torture and inhuman treatment immediately began to appear on social media. The relevant international organisations should investigate the violence and assess it accordingly, Sahiba Gafarova stressed.

The more than a million mines that the Armenian side had planted in the de-occupied Azerbaijani territories pose one of the biggest hurdles in the path of those lands’ revival. Almost 300 Azerbaijani citizens have either been killed or wounded gravely in mine explosions since the end of the Patriotic War. What’s more, Armenia has not given us accurate maps of the minefields still despite repeated demands that they be handed over, according to Ms Gafarova.

The Azerbaijani side expressed a hope at the CIS IPA 54^th plenum in Samarkand that Armenia would not hinder normalisation of the bilateral relations, that a peace treaty would be concluded between Azerbaijan and Armenia and that practical steps would be taken to fulfil all the provisions of the November 2020 Trilateral Statement. Moreover, Azerbaijan and Armenia recognised each other’s territorial integrities and sovereignties in the official statements passed in Prague and Sochi in October 2022.

It was Azerbaijan that offered Armenia a peace pact based on the universally-accepted five principles of the international law.

Alas, things are not going as hoped. The mounting Armenian authorities’ rhetoric aiming at interfering with the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and in the internal affairs of our country is a serious concern. Contrary to the obligations it assumed, Armenia has not withdrawn its armed forces from the temporary deployment areas of the Russian peace-makers in the Azerbaijani territory fully. Almost ten thousand Armenian military are on the Azerbaijani soil still. Besides, Armenia is using the Lachin Road to transport mines, military equipment and armaments, to rota its military personnel in the already-mentioned temporary locations of the Russian peace-makers in the Azerbaijani provinces – and to export to its own territory the natural deposits mined in Azerbaijan illegally.

Then, the leader of the Azerbaijani legislature emphasised that the peaceful protest rally of our civil activists that has been going on over at the Lachin-Khankendi motoring road since 12 December 2022 is aimed against those facts and acts precisely. The Lachin Road should appropriately be only used for humanitarian purposes, Sahiba Gafarova pointed out.

The unimpeded movement of more than 6,000 vehicles of Russia’s peacekeepers and International Committee of the Red Cross as well as of those in need of medical assistance and of humanitarian cargoes along the Lachin road proves the groundlessness and falsity of Armenian claims that this road is blocked and that a ‘humanitarian disaster’ exists.

Creation of a border crossing checkpoint on the Lachin Road in line with Azerbaijan’s relevant suggestion would ensure transparency in the operation of the road. However, the Armenian side are not interested; they are not having the proposal therefore. In addition, Armenia has still not fulfilled its obligation to open the Zangazur Corridor in line with the Trilateral Statement. 

Armenia withdrew from the peace talks unilaterally by boycotting the latest planned meeting that was to be held in Moscow in December 2022 and go with participation of the ministers of foreign affairs. Now, Armenia continues obstructing direct peace negotiations round a peace treaty – and doing so in defiance of international efforts to that end.

It remains unclear what exactly Armenia is counting on and what it is playing for time for. What is clear, though, is that signing a peace deal is the only way that leads to peace, stability and prosperity in our region. There is simply no alternative to it – there isn’t and can’t be any.

The Speaker of the Milli Majlis went further to talk of the great pains Azerbaijan is taking to restore her de-occupied provinces. She mentioned that nine towns and hundreds of villages of Azerbaijan had been coventrated during the occupation period and that the whole infrastructure of those parts including roads, power plants and water lines were being built from scratch. An international airport is under construction in Lachin Province; it will be the third in the lands wrested from the invaders’ chokehold. So her audience were able to grasp the full extent of the work in progress, Mrs Gafarova told them that the Government of Azerbaijan had spent USD 4 bn on the restoration during 2021-2022 and that at least a further 1.7 bn USD was to be allocated for the same purpose this year. The Grand Return Programme devised to reintroduce the former IDP to their homelands progresses as well. As President Ilham Aliyev of the Republic of Azerbaijan has said, this is an unprecedented post-conflict development and re-construction model for a national government to undertake.

Sahiba Gafarova took the opportunity to thank the Uzbek and Kazakh colleagues for Uzbekistan’s having built a school and Kazakhstan a creativity centre in the freed Fuzuli Province. This is a shining example of brotherhood, friendship and solidarity between our peoples, according to the leader of the Milli Majlis.

Moves are made already to begin a dialogue with the Armenian dwellers of Azerbaijan’s Garabagh Economic Region. They and Azerbaijan’s official responsible for those matters – and an MP, too, incidentally – met for the first time in Khojali in early March. This dialogue will continue. Azerbaijan is very determined to reintegrate her Armenian citizens living in Garabagh in the society. This is exclusively Azerbaijan’s own internal care. The rights and security of those people will be provided in accordance with the Constitution and legal acts of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

The Speaker of the Milli Majlis also broached the activities of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly. An effective inter-state co-operation mechanism in use in the Commonwealth, the IPA has negotiated a long path of development so far and has become a considerable inter-parliamentary entity contributing to various aspects of interaction within the CIS, in Mrs Gafarova’s opinion. The Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan has always attached great importance to work done under the auspices of the CIS IPA, has actively participated in strengthening the Assembly’s operation and inter-parliamentary co-operation and has been putting forward new ideas and proposals, according to Sahiba Gafarova.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis