Yerevan set to make another provocation to add tension to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Baku warns

Azerbaijan`s Foreign Ministry has warned that any person who illegally visits Azerbaijan`s Armenia-occupied territories will be declared a persona non grata.

These people will be immediately blacklisted, said Foreign Ministry’s Spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev as he commented on news that Armenia is going to arrange an international conference to celebrate the anniversary of the separatist regime in the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, Azertac reported.

“Yerevan is set to make another provocation by organizing an international conference to mark the 25th anniversary of the separatist regime in the occupied Azerbaijani territory. Armenians plan to organize this conference through the French Center for Political and Foreign Affairs late this month or early September. Yerevan has already started sending invitations to former government officials, public figures and MPs of a number of countries. The Armenian side also plans to organize a visit of the conference participants to the occupied Azerbaijani territory under any pretext,” he said.

The spokesman stressed that the conference aims to “harm the OSCE Minsk Group-mediated negotiations to solve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, undermine efforts to ensure a lasting peace in the region, add tension to situation at this sensitive moment and propagate the separatist regime in the occupied Azerbaijani territory.”

“We urge the invited persons to respect international legal norms and principles, not to become tools of the Armenian propaganda machine and to refrain from participating in this provocative conference and visiting the occupied Azerbaijani territories,” said Hajiyev.

The spokesman voiced satisfaction with the fact that several public and political figures have already refused to attend the conference.

As a result of Armenia's armed invasion into Azerbaijan's legal territory, the two neighboring countries have remained locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the NagornoKarabakh region, which Armenia-backed separatists seized from Azerbaijan in a bloody war in the early 1990s.

Despite Baku's best efforts, peace in the occupied lands remains a mirage in the distance as Armenia refuses to comply with international law.