Azerbaijan Sends Note of Protest to Bulgarian Foreign Ministry

The visit of the Bulgarian MPs Valeri Simeonov and Yordan Apostolov to the occupied territory of Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh and their meeting there with representatives of the illegal separatist regime is a direct violation of international law, Azerbaijani MP from the ruling New Azerbaijan Party Elman Nasirov told Trend.

It's because the "regime" in Nagorno-Karabakh is not recognized by any state in the world, even Armenia-occupier itself, would not recognize it, he added.

He noted that the act of the MPs of such a country as Bulgaria, which is a member of NATO and EU should be assessed as an attempt to legitimize the self-proclaimed "regime".

"Such actions completely contradict the obligations undertaken by the member countries of NATO and the European Union. I consider that the consideration of such visits as their own business, individual visits is unacceptable. Sometimes, we become eyewitnesses of such facts when, after similar visits by senior representatives of some countries to Nagorno-Karabakh, their leaders say that, supposedly, this does not coincide with the official position of the country, the visits are private in nature and so on. This approach is fundamentally flawed," Nasirov stressed.

He noted that the negotiations of the Bulgarian MPs during their visit to Nagorno-Karabakh with the "speaker of the parliament" of the separatist regime once again indicates an attempt to legitimize this regime on occupied Azerbaijani lands.

"In such cases, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry declares these person personae non-gratae and includes them into its list of undesirable persons. The relations between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan are quite developed, Bulgaria is also one of the main partners in the Southern Gas Corridor project and during the visit of the country's prime minister to Azerbaijan, he asked the head of state Ilham Aliyev for one billion cubic meters of gas. That is, all this suggests that the relations between Bulgaria and Azerbaijan are at a fairly developed level. But such actions, naturally, cast a shadow on our relationship. Therefore, I believe that the actions of these MPs, contrary to the national and state interests of Bulgaria, will be given a proper legal assessment," Nasirov said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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