Azerbaijan still hopes to sign a peace treaty with Armenia before the end of this year. Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev stated this in an interview with TASS. “We call on the Armenian political leadership to take the main step. Officially, by signing the peace treaty, record the recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including the Karabakh region, and pledge to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of our country in the future,” he noted.

According to Hajiyev, Yerevan’s attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan, including by promoting the topic of creating some kind of international mechanisms for dialogue between Baku and the ethnic Armenian minority in Karabakh, are doomed to failure. The official emphasized that Karabakh is an internal issue of Azerbaijan and any attempts to challenge this are counterproductive from the point of view of the prospects for achieving sustainable peace in the region.

According to Hajiyev’s statement, Baku “will not discuss issues that call into question the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the republic either with Yerevan or with any third country.”