The speaker of parliament of Armenia Alen Simonyan once again distorted the realia present in the region and voiced the thoughts rather departed from the truth in his statement made to journalists on 28 November. Not only does this interview of the speaker of parliament of Armenia clearly demonstrate that the Armenian leadership are queuing for another batch of ‘absurd statements’, but it is also evidence of their endeavours to be constantly on the radar of their foreign patrons. It is simply impossible to give any other explanation for these last thoughts.

Simonyan is attempting to veil with a look into the future his ‘dream’ of erasing from memory the fact of the 30-year-long Armenian occupation of the internationally recognised territories of Azerbaijan and delete this dark stain upon the history of Armenia from the agenda of the international community.

It would be good if Simonyan spoke about the future and, whilst so doing, apologised for that more than 1 million Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDP evicted from their native lands due to the ethnic cleansing policy pursued by Armenia, as well as for the Khojali Genocide and the destruction of 9 towns and hundreds of villages in the occupation period. This is not going to happen, unfortunately.

Essentially, the speaker of parliament of the monoethnic Armenia which had destroyed hundreds of artefacts of the Azerbaijani historical, cultural and religious heritage in the once-occupied lands as well as in Armenia’s territory, and had renamed monuments and population centres, and had written a false history, unmasks himself when he measures by his own yardstick Azerbaijan where diverse ethnic groups coexist amiably and peacefully whilst their history and heritage are protected on the state level.

Simonyan’s primitive reasoning intended to clothe in legal garb the mere fact of the continuing Armenian occupation of the 7 villages of the Gazakh Province and of Kerki; that he would then have accused Azerbaijan of occupation adds up to nothing else but manifestation of morbid thinking.

It is clearly a fact already how accustomed the Armenian leadership have become to repeating their fictions about Azerbaijan ‘preparing for war’ and ‘rejecting the peace negotiations’ – the fictions devised to deceive the international community. We would like to remind Simonyan once again that it was precisely Azerbaijan that followed the conclusion of the 44 days’ Patriotic War with a call to Armenia to sign a peace treaty based on the principles of international law. Armenia has spent these past three years using its political and military provocations to attempt to block the peace process. There is at present a historic chance in the region to establish a lasting peace. Azerbaijan has declared repeatedly her preparedness for a peace with Armenia on the basis of respect for both countries’ territorial integrity and sovereignty. And it is at this time that Armenia will try to drag out the negotiations by delaying for a long period its response to Azerbaijan’s proposals regarding the text of the peace treaty.

We reiterate that Azerbaijan is an advocate of a solid peace in the region and supports the normalisation of relations with Armenia as well as the signing of a peace treaty. We consider that there are ample opportunities at present to sign the peace treaty. We therefore call upon the Armenian side to refrain from such statements that are provocative and far removed from the truth, but, instead, to make a contribution of their own to the peace cause.