Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has harshly criticized Armenian leadership for failing to respond to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s condolences for 1915 events.
“It’s clear who does not want peace in the region,” Aliyev said in response to Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan’s speech that criticized Turkey during a summit on the Eastern Partnership program in Prague.
Aliyev said Sarksyan’s using an “opportunity to attack Turkey” because Turkish representatives are absent, but he is here to respond, according to a transcript provided by Azerbaijan’s APA news agency.
 Aliyev said Erdoğan offered Armenian leadership to open all archives to historians and Erdoğan extended condolences to Armenians. He added that although the US and the EU highly appreciated the position of Erdoğan, “it seems that this is not sufficient for the Armenian government.”
In response to Sarksyan’s criticism that Turkish-Armenian border still remains closed, Aliyev said the border has been shut down since Armenian occupation of Kalbajar region in 1993.
Aliyev recalled that all Azerbaijanis, composed of at least 30 percent of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, were deported from the territory and seven adjacent regions to Karabakh were occupied – 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories.
The president said Azerbaijanis were subject to “ethnic cleansing” and said the conflict has not been resolved yet despite four UN Security Council resolutions, European Parliament and Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe resolutions. Aliyev noted that Armenia disregards these resolutions and continues occupation of the territories which have never belonged to them.
Aliyev said “we want peace, we want to get back our territories.” He urged Armenia to start withdrawing its troops from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
“It’s easy to do that. Only Armenia should had political will,” Aliyev stressed. He also questioned why Armenia is not targeted with sanctions and no punishment is inflicted on them. He added that “illegal, criminal” so-called representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh regime obtain visas to European capitals.
“This is unbearable and this must be ended,” Aliyev said. 

Doday’s Zaman