Yerevan /Mediamax/. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has stated the need to ensure the right of representatives of the “Community of Western Azerbaijan” to return to Armenia.

Ilham Aliyev said this at a meeting with newly appointed Canadian Ambassador Kevin Hamilton, commenting on the diplomat’s words about ensuring the right of return, Azertac news agency reports.

“The president emphasized that this right should be mutually ensured, including that of the representatives of the Community of Western Azerbaijan. The head of state emphasized that in the last century the indigenous Azerbaijani population was ethnically cleansed in the territory of Armenia at various stages, most recently in 1988, and its material and cultural heritage was completely destroyed,” Azertac reports.

Ilham Aliyev said that “the three permanent members of the UN Security Council could not, or rather did not want to achieve the settlement of the conflict - they all wanted that occupation by Armenia becomes eternal.”

Ilham Aliyev said that “substantive negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia started in December 2023, as before that Armenia tried to include the issue of so-called Nagorno-Karabakh in the peace treaty.”

“This was unacceptable, as this is our internal issue. Thus, after the liquidation of the separatist regime, negotiations have been held for only 6 months - since December,” the Azerbaijani president said.  

“The head of state said that it takes time, and, of course, the most important condition for the peace agreement is to change the Constitution of Armenia, as it contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan, and until this happens, the peace agreement will not be signed,” the report says.

At the same time, the Azerbaijani president noted that “we are moving quite quickly within the negotiation process.”

“I believe that we can finalize the text of a peace treaty, at least its basic principles, within a few months. During the occupation, the plan of the mediators was to reach agreement on basic principles called the Madrid Principles. These were to be initialed and then a text was to be drafted. We believe that this could be one of the options - to reach an agreement on the basic principles, initial them and then work on the text,” Aliyev said.