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Azerbaijan ready for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh settlement — minister

Azerbaijan’s top diplomat claims Armenia is inflicting damage to the negotiating process

BAKU, September 22. /TASS/. Azerbaijan is prepared to hold talks with Armenia on the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh to change the status quo in the conflict, the country’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said on Thursday on the sidelines of the 71st session of the UN General Assembly.

At the meeting with OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier, Mammadyarov said that "Azerbaijan is ready for substantive talks for changing the current status quo in the spirit of meetings (of Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents) in Vienna and St. Petersburg," Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said.

Azerbaijan’s top diplomat claimed that Armenia is conducting a policy "inflicting damage to the negotiating process." Mammadyarov said "the military drills launched by Armenia in the occupied Agdamsky district of Azerbaijan are a serious provocation aimed at disrupting the negotiating process."

The situation along the contact line between the conflicting parties in Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan, sharply deteriorated overnight to April 2 when fierce clashes broke out. Both parties accused each other of violating the truce. At a meeting of chiefs of General Staff of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow, an agreement on a ceasefire was reached starting from noon local time (0800GMT) on April 5. Since then, the parties have reported ceasefire violations along the contact line.

A trilateral statement adopted at the meeting of the Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in St. Petersburg on June 20 confirmed the parties’ commitment to normalizing the situation along the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh.