MOSCOW, September 16. /TASS/. Azerbaijan still hopes to conclude a peace treaty with Armenia by the end of the year, assistant to the president of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev said in an interview with TASS.

"We still hope for the signing of a peace treaty before the end of this year and call on the Armenian political leadership to take the main step - officially, with their signature under the peace treaty, to record recognition of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including the Karabakh economic region of our republic, and to commit to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of our country in the future," he said.

"Including through attempts to bring our internal issues, such as issues of our interaction with our citizens of Armenian ethnic origin in Karabakh, to international platforms under the pretext of ensuring the rights and security of this population group. These are our citizens, and their rights and security will be ensured by the Constitution of Azerbaijan," he added.

According to the assistant to the head of the republic, it is important that Armenia abandons the policy of financing separatism in Azerbaijan. "As for the activities of international mediators, we highly appreciate their contribution to the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations," he added.

Hajiyev highlighted the important role of Russia in this process, "whose active mediation ensured the signing of a trilateral agreement in November 2020, which put an end to large-scale hostilities."

"The European Union and the United States also make their contribution to the negotiation process. In general, each of the negotiation tracks is unique in its own way and helps conduct a dialogue between Baku and Yerevan on the most problematic issues."

Baku and Yerevan have been embroiled in a sovereignty dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988. In September 2020, a spate of renewed hostilities broke out in the region. On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on the complete cessation of hostilities. Russian peacekeepers were brought into the region to ensure the operation of humanitarian corridors. On May 17, 2023, at the Council of Europe’s summit in Reykjavik, Pashinyan said that Yerevan recognized the sovereignty of Azerbaijan within its borders, which included Nagorno-Karabakh.