Kazakhstan's President Nursutlan Nazarbayev said on Thursday that he was against an Azerbaijani proposal at a recent summit of Turkic-speaking states to accuse Armenia of "military aggression" because he thought the move would "complicate" resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Nazarbayev receiving the honorary doctor's degree from Yerevan State University
The Azerbaijani delegation tried unsuccessfully to include the passage in the final communiquÎ of last month's meeting in Istanbul of the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
"Statements like that do not resolve anything," Nazarbayev said. "They only worsen relations between states and peoples."
The Kazakh was speaking at a meeting with the faculty of Yerevan State University on the second day of his visit to Armenia. He said the forum of the Turkic-speaking nations should not acquire a strong political dimension. Its main mission should be the promotion of cultural links between the ethnically close peoples populating the vast geographical area, Nazarbayev added.
"We are talking about normal inter-state relationships, about cultural and economic links between normal people with the same language roots and history," he said. "Therefore, turning such meetings into a means for solving certain political issues and for drawing us into conflicts is not acceptable."
Karine Kalantarian
Nazarbayev receiving the honorary doctor's degree from Yerevan State University
The Azerbaijani delegation tried unsuccessfully to include the passage in the final communiquÎ of last month's meeting in Istanbul of the presidents of Turkey, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
"Statements like that do not resolve anything," Nazarbayev said. "They only worsen relations between states and peoples."
The Kazakh was speaking at a meeting with the faculty of Yerevan State University on the second day of his visit to Armenia. He said the forum of the Turkic-speaking nations should not acquire a strong political dimension. Its main mission should be the promotion of cultural links between the ethnically close peoples populating the vast geographical area, Nazarbayev added.
"We are talking about normal inter-state relationships, about cultural and economic links between normal people with the same language roots and history," he said. "Therefore, turning such meetings into a means for solving certain political issues and for drawing us into conflicts is not acceptable."
Karine Kalantarian