Comment by the Spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia on the speech of the President of Azerbaijan, delivered in parliament

At the opening session of the newly appointed parliament the President of Azerbaijan delivered an extensive speech, which time and again contains clear manifestations of hate speech towards Armenia and Armenian people.

The authorities of Azerbaijan try to disguise low level of legitimacy of recent parliamentary elections, inability to implement political and democratic reforms under the veil of aggressive, groundless and false allegations which target not only Armenia and the Armenian people, but also European countries, European structures and the International Election Observation Mission to the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.

It is particularly concerning that Azerbaijani leadership tries to instrumentalize religion in its unjustified allegations, on the one hand, accusing European countries of violating the rights of migrants on religious grounds, and calling for religious solidarity in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the other hand.

The promotion of enmity against the Armenian people, accompanied by new historical and geographical “discoveries” by the President of Azerbaijan, fundamentally contradicts the commitment of Azerbaijan to build up an environment conducive to peace and prepare populations for peace.

From this perspective it should be noted that extremely low standards of human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan seriously hinder the advancement of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, particularly the implementation of agreements, reached within that framework.

Attempts of the leadership of Azerbaijan to build its own legitimacy on the grounds of hatred towards the neighbouring nation and of mistrust towards the international community are irresponsible and can undermine the regional peace and security.