Authorities in Azerbaijan will have to answer whether Baku is interested in establishing peace or no, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan said in an interview with the Public TV.
"The fact that 23 captives are still being held in Azerbaijan, and other facts, the rhetoric – these are perceived negatively by us and these actions by the leadership of Azerbaijan are strictly evaluated by us,” Kostanyan said.
Nevertheless, he added, the Armenian government continues to take purposeful steps to build peace and stability in the South Caucasus, particularly in the direction of normalizing relations with Azerbaijan.
“The Armenian side is interested in solving humanitarian problems, and we are doing our homework in this regard. New maps have been drawn up, at the same time we believe that all the remaining humanitarian problems, which are currently in the Azerbaijan's court, should also be resolved,” the Deputy foreign policy chief said.
“Another problem that both countries have been raising in the last 2 years is the issue of clarifying the fate of missing persons, and in this direction too we have done some work to understand what information can be collected.
“The statements of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan raise doubts as to whether the Azerbaijani side is interested in the normalization of relations and the establishment of peace, and in this way confidence-building measures are of great importance.
“After all, Azerbaijan will have to answer whether they are interested in confidence-building measures and the establishment of peace or not, because statements coming from Baku are quite contradictory.”
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement earlier that Azerbaijan is negating Yerevan’s trust-building efforts 26. The statement came in response to Azerbaijan’s reaction when Armenia’s National Security Service announced on Thursday that it will provide Azerbaijan “new documents” containing information about a minefield in Karabakh. The Armenian NSS said the decision was based on humanitarian considerations but Azerbaijan maintained that it won’t be regarded as a confidence-building measure.
