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"President of Azerbaijan pretends as if he has forgotten that he has accepted the document of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs as the basis for negotiations, according to which the status of Artsakh is determined by the legally binding expression of will of the people of Artsakh," Deputy Foreign Minister of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan told Armenpress news agency. 

Asked to comment on the announcement of the President of Azerbaijan that the basis for the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict is the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Kocharyan said the words of the Azerbaijani leader are half-truth, since the issue should be settled within the framework of the territorial integrity of both Artsakh and Azerbaijan. "The territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan has nothing to do with the territorial integrity of the Republic of Artsakh," said Kocharyan.

"The best answer to Azerbaijani President's made-up labeling of Nagorno-Karabakh is free, independent Artsakh with its vibrant civil society, which is moving forward on the path of strengthening democracy," added the deputy minister.

In response to Aliyev's claims about Armenia and Artsakh being Azerbaijani historical lands, Kocharyan said: "Soon, it will be 100 years, since, with the military support of the Ottoman Empire, the second Turkish state called Azerbaijan has emerged on the world political map. Strangely, that state, while failing to remember what happened just yesterday, remembers what happened centuries ago, before its appearance."

In the words of the deputy minister, the Azerbaijani leadership with morbid obsession ignores or distorts everything: international law, including the UN Charter, the efforts of the mediators, including the statements by the Heads of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries, the history, starting from antiquity to the present, including works of Strabo, Plutarch and other antique authors.

"This statement is directed, first of all, to the internal audience of Azerbaijan with the aim to justify the policy of violent assimilation of indigenous ethnic minorities, as well as to present the authoritarian hereditary regime established in the country as a democratic achievement." Kocharyan added.