During and following the meeting held in Moscow on April 1 between Vladimir Putin and Nikol Pashinyan, Russian officials made public remarks touching upon issues that are strictly internal to Azerbaijan.
In this regard, Azerbaijan’s position—that the use of its Karabakh region for political speculation is unacceptable—and its expectation that such rhetoric be halted were conveyed via diplomatic channels to the Presidential Administration, the Government and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.
Despite this, the issue continues to feature in the official political discourse of the Russian side.
AzerNEWS reports that this was stated in a commentary by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan in response to recent statements made in Russia regarding the country’s Karabakh region.
“Today, the Press Secretary of the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, in an interview with the ‘Vesti’ channel, once again commented—while discussing Armenia–Russia relations—on the question of whether Russia or Armenia was the first to recognise Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.
The fact that the Karabakh region is an integral part of Azerbaijan is based not on the decision of any state, but on history, international law and justice. This was reaffirmed and fully established as a result of the 44-day Patriotic War in 2020 and the one-day anti-terror operations in 2023.
We would like to remind the Russian side once again that no country, including the Russian Federation, has ever questioned Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, including the Karabakh region.
We reiterate our expectation that issues related to Azerbaijan’s sovereignty will not become a subject of public discussion in the context of Armenia–Russia relations, particularly at a time when those relations are not straightforward,” the statement emphasised.
