Mammadyarov: Armenia did not allow possibility for Azerbaijan to liberate its own lands

Armenia did not accept the idea of the possibility of Azerbaijan restoring its territorial integrity at all, it did not allow this, Report informs that ex-Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elmar Mammadyarov said this in an interview with Media Director of Global Media Group Hamid Hamidov on Baku TV.

“During that period when I spoke with them (Armenian officials - ed.), they did not understand it. I told all my counterparts from Armenia that you would lead to the fact that there would still be war. We may not even call it a war, but there will be a crisis, a controlled crisis. As a result, it happened so,” E. Mammadyarov said.

He noted that if initially, Armenia expressed readiness for constructive negotiations, then later it changed its point of view.

"Over recent years, they have said that we would not be able to 'sell' this to the Armenian population. They openly stated that 'we understand everything, but we will not be able to 'sell' this to the population, they will not accept it," the ex-minister noted.

Mammadyarov noted that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs also understood that the situation had reached a dead end.

"An interesting incident happened when I once again told the co-chairs that everything would end in a crisis, one of them exclaimed: "Make a crisis so that we get off the ground." The co-chairs understood that they reached an impasse," E. Mammadyarov stressed.

The diplomat said that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, following the results of the Patriotic War, in addition to the liberation of the occupied territories, returned the self-respect of the Azerbaijani nation. "This is very important psychologically. Believe me, as a person who was in direct contact with the Armenian side," he stressed.