The Artsakh Foreign Ministry released the following statement today.

The recent statement of the President of Azerbaijan that the resumption of hostilities does not mean the rejection of the negotiation process, and that Baku continues to consider the residents of Artsakh as its citizens is a manifestation of the highest degree of cynicism.

Such statements demonstrate that the military-political leadership of Azerbaijan lives in its own fictional world, detached from the reality. Without realizing the illegal and illusory nature of its claims to Artsakh, the Azerbaijani authorities will not be able to break the vicious circle into which Baku has driven itself with anti-Armenian propaganda, attempts to rewrite the region’s history and manipulative interpretation of international law.

Firstly, citizens of the Republic of Artsakh have been living in an independent, sovereign state since 1991, and have no political and legal ties with Azerbaijan whatsoever. Baku has long lost the moral right to call the people of Artsakh “its citizens”. And, after unleashing an armed aggression against the Republic of Artsakh on September 27, 2020, and deliberately targeting peaceful population and civilian infrastructure using cluster munitions and other types of prohibited weapons, such statements from Baku are a meaningless set of empty words.

Moreover, by unleashing another aggressive war and resuming attempts to resolve the Azerbaijan-Karabakh conflict by force, Baku has derailed all the efforts of the international mediators, nullifying their initiatives in the peace process. Under the current circumstances, there is only one way out – international recognition of the independence of the Republic of Artsakh, which will ensure lasting peace and stability in the region, as well as exclude Azerbaijan's attempts to start another war and prevent the Baku authorities from committing new crimes against humanity.