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Armenia has reaffirmed its commitment to the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan and the establishment of peace and stability in the South Caucasus in response to Baku’s offer of “direct talks” with Yerevan.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called for direct negotiations with Armenia in a mutually acceptable venue, including at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Below is the full text of a statement issued by the Armenian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.

"The Armenian side, once again reaffirming the political will of Armenia to make efforts towards the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan and the establishment of peace and stability in the South Caucasus, on November 21, sent to the Azerbaijani side its 6th edition of the agreement on the normalization of relations.

We consider it necessary to remind that Armenia, after receiving the latest proposals from Azerbaijan, was in the process of reviewing them and had willingness to continue negotiations on the draft agreement, despite the deteriorating day by day humanitarian crisis resulting from the dire blockade in Nagorno-Karabakh. On September 19, Azerbaijan carried out a large-scale military attack against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, which resulted in the forced displacement of the entire Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Afterwards, continuing to openly ignore the possibility of returning to the peace process and the efforts of international partners in that direction, the Azerbaijani side did not participate in the meetings at the level of heads of states first in Granada within the framework of the European political Community, and then in Brussels, despite the fact that these five-party and trilateral meetings were agreed in advance.

The Armenian side continued working on the text of the agreement and considered it more effective to present it to the Azerbaijani side during the scheduled meetings. However, in order to prevent attempts to deadlock the negotiation process and aimed at achieving lasting peace in our region, the Republic of Armenia constructively sent its comments on the draft agreement. As demonstrated numerous times before, Armenia proved its readiness to resume engagement in the negotiations, guided by the following principles:

• mutual recognition of each other's territorial integrity without any ambiguity and respect for it,

• future delimitation process on the basis of the Alma-Ata Declaration and the most recent legitimate maps of the Soviet Union,

• unblocking of the regional communications on the basis of full respect for the sovereignty and jurisdiction of states and the principles of equality and reciprocity.

The Armenian side continues to believe that, despite all the difficulties and challenges, there is a real chance of establishing peace between the two countries, which can be implemented if both sides have political will. The Armenian side continues to demonstrate such will. One of its manifestations is that Armenia proposed to Azerbaijan to hold a meeting of the delimitation commission on the state border between the two countries."