Jeyhun Bayramov Refuses to Contact With Ruben Vardanyan
At a press conference on the results of 2022 on December 27, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said that Baku is focused on results in negotiations to normalize relations with Armenia.
"Azerbaijan is always ready for dialogue on different platforms, but the main goal in negotiations with Armenia is the result," the head of Azerbaijani diplomacy added. Bayramov assessed the progress made in negotiations with Armenia during the year as very limited, the reason for which he called the non-constructive and inconsistent position of the Armenian side.
According to the head of the Foreign Ministry, the signing of a peace agreement, the delimitation of the border, and the opening of transport communications in the region are three different processes in the current negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Bayramov said that it is no secret that the Russian side offered to leave the issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh for the future and noted that Azerbaijan considered this unacceptable from the first day.
"The Azerbaijani state has announced at a high level that the ethnic Armenians of Karabakh have the right to live in Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan is ready to ensure their rights," the Minister recalled. Bayramov further pointed to earlier examples of positive contacts with Karabakh Armenians, "but a man with a vicious past was sent to the region," he argued, referring to Ruben Vardanyan, the de-facto State Minister of the separatist Nagorno-Karabakh.