Statements
17 November 2023, 13:43
European Union (EU) official Peter Stano tried to escalate the situation in the region by making provocative and discriminatory statements in an interview with Armenia's "Armenpress" news agency on November 17, 2023.
"While the EU official spoke about the right of return of Armenians who moved to Armenia from the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, he did not say anything about the return of 300,000 Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia. This is discrimination on ethnic and religious grounds. It should be recalled that despite our repeated appeals, the EU refuses to publicly express its position on our right to return. In addition, the EU official threatened Azerbaijan, portraying the protection of Armenia's territorial integrity as a sort of sacred duty"
"First of all, the EU perfectly knows that Azerbaijan respects the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states. Moreover, it is duplicitous for the EU to now stand up for the territorial integrity of Armenia, which is not under any threat.
It was the EU which turned a blind eye to the actions of Armenia, which violated the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, expelled hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis from the occupied Azerbaijani territories and destroyed nearly a thousand towns and villages of Azerbaijan. It is hypocritical for the EU official to worry about Azerbaijan's "unilateral military action in Karabakh". Azerbaijan does not seek permission from anyone, including the EU, and does not report to anyone for conducting self-defence operations on its sovereign territory.
The EU, which emphasizes the importance of the presence of international forces in Karabakh, should better send such missions to its member countries, for example, to France, where racism and Islamophobia flourish, where the Corsican language is banned, or to Lithuania, which implements a discriminatory policy against the Russian ethnic minority.
The EU must end its low and arrogant acts of interference in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan, abandon the hypocritical and discriminatory policy that aggravates the situation in the region, stop arming Armenia, and respect the right of Azerbaijanis expelled from this country to return to their.
