An Azerbaijani senior official for the first time has criticized the U.S. and France ambassadors to Azerbaijan for declining to accept the official invitations to Shusha after the return of the town to Azerbaijani control following the 2020 war against Armenia.
On August 27, an international conference was held in Shusha, dedicated to the Azerbaijani government’s restoration and reconstruction works in territories regained after the war. The conference was attended by more than 160 diplomats and military attaches from 60 states and 19 international organizations, the state television reported.
Following the event, Azerbaijani President’s senior adviser Hikmat Hajiyev told reporters that while “our diplomat colleagues and friends can’t hold their surprise when they see these reconstruction projects done in a short period by Azerbaijan,” there are two states that refuse to participate in such events – the U.S. and France.
The ambassadors of the U.S. and France to Azerbaijan ostensibly refuse to visit Shusha despite repeated invitations. This should be seen as their disrespect toward the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Hikmat Hajiyev
Hajiyev added that “perhaps, they won’t be invited at all anymore.”
The U.S. and France are represented, along with Russia, in the OSCE Minsk Group, a body established in the early 1990s in order to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Since Azerbaijani advances in Karabakh during the war, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev has been mocking the Minsk Group as being ineffective. Most recently, at the Baku Conference of Non-Aligned Movement Parliamentary Network in June, Aliyev called the group ‘dead’, adding that Azerbaijan resolved the conflict on its own.
We already said farewell to the Minsk Group. But, unfortunately, Armenia and some others want to revitalize it. It is not possible. It is already dead and we, as a country which suffered from occupation, we say that openly.
Ilham Aliyev
