President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev made the remarks in an interview with the Spanish EFE news agency, according to Trend.
"Yes we supported the proposal of Turkish president of this regional cooperation platform. 3+3. Armenia did not respond yet. You see, again the unconstructive position of Armenia. But we fully support that and that will be very important for not only post-war settlement but in general for regional development in our area. Because if we are able to manage to create this format of cooperation between six countries of the region, that will be the main guarantee against any kind of new hostility, that will be an important factor for regional cooperation and it will generate a lot of benefits. Only due to opening of the communications which Azerbaijan strongly advocates for, we can immediately increase the trade turnover between the countries of the region, we can create maybe ten thousands of new jobs, only by the opening of communications. But if we enhance the mutual trade, if we concentrate on positive dynamics, our region will transform from the region of tensions to the region of stability and peace," Aliyev said.
In response to a question to hold meeting with the Armenian Premier, the Azeri president said, "Yes, as I said to] you last time we are ready and actually the talks and the contacts have started. There is a format of cooperation on the level of deputy prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia. This format is dedicated to the issues related to the opening of communications. Also, recently on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met. That was for the first time since the war ended. I think that the meeting as far as I was informed by our minister was very constructive and promising. Our position remains unchanged, since the war ended, we want to establish normal relations with Armenia based on a mutual recognition of territorial integrity of both countries. We are ready to start immediately the process of delimitation of our borders. And, of course, after that process is ended-demarcation. We also express willingness to start to work together with Armenia on the future peace agreement. All these initiatives have been articulated on many times by me and by other Azerbaijani officials, but unfortunately, have not been yet positively responded by Armenian side. So our position is unchanged and there are certain steps, but I think during this year we could have made much bigger progress."
KI/FNA14000710000672
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