“It is necessary to ensure the return of Azerbaijanis forcibly displaced from Armenia and take steps to assess crimes against humanity committed by the Armenians within the framework of international law,” Aliyev said in a message to participants of an international conference on the issue held in Baku.
“We believe that the peace-loving members of the Western Azerbaijan community will return to their ancestral lands and good neighborly relations will be established between our peoples,” he said.
Aliyev also demanded the “restoration of the cultural heritage of Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia” which he said should involve the United Nations and other international bodies. That, he said, is necessary for “eliminate hostility and achieving mutual understanding between the two peoples.”
The remarks came two days after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian again declared that peace has already been established between Armenia and Azerbaijan as a result of their U.S.-brokered agreements reached in Washington in August.
His domestic critics have brushed aside such statements, saying that Baku will continue to make more demands on Yerevan despite unilateral concessions already made by Pashinian. They maintain that Aliyev’s continuing description of much of Armenian territory as “Western Azerbaijan” and demands for an extraterritorial corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave show that his ultimate goal is to end Armenia’s existence as a viable state.
Aliyev’s demands also sharply contrast with Pashinian’s categoric refusal to champion the right of Nagorno-Karabakh’s displaced ethnic Armenian population to return to its homeland recaptured by Azerbaijan in 2023. Pashinian has repeatedly said in recent months that discussing the repatriation of the Karabakh Armenians and other refugees from the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict would be “dangerous for the peace process.”
In late October, Armenian pro-government lawmakers reportedly prevented their colleagues from several other ex-Soviet states and the European Union from backing the Karabakh refugees’ right to return home during a session of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly in Yerevan.