The Azerbaijani president's website has published the full text of Ilham Aliyev's address to the OSCE summit plenary session on Wednesday.
News.Az reprints the speech below.
“Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,
"First of all, I would like to thank President Nursultan Nazarbayev and all our Kazakh friends for the excellent organization of this summit, the warm hospitality and for their chairmanship of the OSCE over the past year.
"I would like to draw your attention to issues of security in our region.
"The continued armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is the main threat to international and regional peace and stability.
"As a result of a policy of ethnic cleansing conducted by Armenia against Azerbaijanis, 20% of Azerbaijani lands are under occupation and a million Azerbaijanis have become refugees and displaced persons on their own land.
"Armenia continues to occupy not only Nagorno-Karabakh but also seven other regions of Azerbaijan,
"Armenia destroyed our cities and villages, our houses and places of worship, our graves and cemeteries. They committed military crimes, genocide in Khojaly, where hundreds of civilians were killed by Armenian armed forces only for being Azerbaijanis. Among the innocent victims of Khojaly are over a hundred children.
"Nagorno Karabakh is a historical part of Azerbaijan. This is an internationally recognized part of Azerbaijan. Today Armenia continues to use force to control the occupied lands and prevent the return of displaced persons to their homes. But despite this Azerbaijan remains committed to peaceful negotiations and still hopes that these negotiations will be effective. The resolution of the conflict must be based only on respect for the norms and principles of international law, the execution of four resolutions of the UN Security Council, the resolutions of the OSCE, resolutions of the European Parliament, Council of Europe and other international organizations.
"Instead of conducting talks in an atmosphere of good will and in the interest of finding a resolution of the conflict in the near future, Armenia prefers to follow a path of escalating the conflict with unpredictable consequences. Armenia constantly breaks the ceasefire regime, conducts military exercises in the occupied territories, tries to change the historic names of occupied towns and villages, illegally resettles the civilian population in the occupied territory, all in an attempt to make the situation irreversible and the peace process pointless.
"The illegal activity of Armenia in the occupied lands is reflected in the report of the OSCE fact-finding mission held in the region in 2005.
"Armenia's behaviour during negotiations gives us the impression that Armenia does not seek peace, does not seek the liberation of the occupied territories and most probably wants to maintain the status quo for a long time and to render the talks process pointless
"The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992. Talks have been held within its framework for nearly 20 years but without result.
"Azerbaijan praises the proposals, developed by the Minsk Group co-chairing countries within the past six years within the framework of the Prague process.We are ready to continue talks and come to completion in the shortest possible time and also to achieve a result that will be based on the norms and principles of international law as part of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
"Thank you.”
1news.az