Armenia's Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan called the Azerbaijani side’s statements about 'Western Azerbaijanis' a proof of Azerbaijan's territorial ambitions towards Armenia.
At his press conference held Wednesday, Armenia's Foreign Minister said that such a matter is not on the agenda of the negotiations.
He emphasized that such statements by Baku prove that this story is nothing more than a proof of Azerbaijan's territorial ambitions and a violation of Armenia's territorial integrity. Calling the territory of Armenia 'Western Azerbaijan' is already a proof of these claims, Mirzoyan said.
He recalled that Baku is not talking about the community of Azerbaijanis in Armenia, but specifically about 'Western Azerbaijanis.'
"Another false maximalist idea. On the other hand, we have never hidden that Azerbaijanis lived in Armenia during the collapse of the USSR; but the vast majority of these Azerbaijanis left in a civilized way," Mirzoyan said.
He reminded that hundreds of Azerbaijani families in Armenia sold their apartments, 12 thousand Azerbaijani families in Armenia exchanged their apartments, and more than 160 thousand Azerbaijanis in Armenia received compensation.
"We can draw parallels with the 500,000 Armenians in Azerbaijan, remember their fate: the Baku, Sumgait pogroms. Everything I say is a fact, a documented fact: both the compensation we provided, for which there are documents, and the massacres of Armenians in Azerbaijan," Mirzoyan stated.
