Elchin Amirbekov, a representative of the president of Azerbaijan, said in an interview with the BBC Russian service that Baku recognizes “Zangezur” as the sovereign territory of Armenia.
When asked by the BBC whether Armenia fears that Azerbaijan wants to take “Zangezur” under its control, Elchin Amirbekov denied the existence of such plans.
“We [Azerbaijan] accept that this is the sovereign territory of Armenia. But it is important for us to know how the other side will ensure the safety of traffic in the corridor,” Amirbekov says. “We need reliable guarantees for the safety of every passenger who takes a train from the main part of Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan or vice versa.”
According to Amirbekov, Azerbaijan is ready for negotiations, but if Armenia decides to postpone the process, Azerbaijan is ready to build a route through the territory of Iran.
When asked about Armenia-Azerbaijan border delimitation, the representative of the president of Azerbaijan said that this is a very painful issue because in Soviet times the administrative border between the two countries was drawn very conventionally, as at that time no one thought that it could turn into an interstate border, and as a result, some Armenian-inhabited border villages ended up on the Azerbaijani side and vice versa.
What is more, there are various Soviet maps on which the separate parts of the border are slightly different, and it is not yet clear how exactly the parties are going to negotiate in these cases, added the representative of the president of Azerbaijan.
“The main question is whether both sides have enough political will to solve this issue peacefully. We [Azerbaijan] want to find such a solution as much as we want progress in other domains of bilateral negotiations. I believe that the sooner the border between us is agreed upon, the better, the less likely it is that hostilities will resume,” says Amirbekov.
