Azerbaijan urges EU to press Armenia on withdrawal of troops

Speaking at a joint press conference in Baku on July 22 with Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, Aliyev said Armenia continues to defy four UN Security Council Resolutions on immediate and unconditional withdrawal.

Aliyev said his country’s relations with Armenia will immediately start to normalize once the occupying army begins to pull out.

Armenia captured nearly one-fifth of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding districts, in a war after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

More than 30,000 people were killed and over 1 million displaced before a ceasefire was signed in 1994.

Citing reports by two fact-finding missions of the OSCE, Aliyev said Armenians committed ethnic cleansing in the territory they captured from Azerbaijan.

Tusk said the European Union supports Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and wants to see a peaceful resolution of the conflict. 

He said renewed hostilities are not an option.