Elmar Mammadyarov: Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs! As you know, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina Igor Crnadak is on an official visit to Azerbaijan. We had a bilateral meeting with him. Mr. Minister was received today morning by H.E. Mr. Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. We discussed with him the ways of advancing the bilateral relations. The political relationship between Azerbaijan and Bosnia and Herzegovina within international organizations, as well as on the bilateral basis is at the high level. We also agreed on upgrading the economic cooperation to a high level between the two countries. The energy projects, particularly on the transportation of natural gas have a great importance for Bosnia and Herzegovina. We also discussed the transport issue. We talked about the development of Silk Way, Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway project. This railway will launch its operation by the end of 2016, beginning of 2017. Bosnia and Herzegovina will be able to benefit from these projects. We discussed the cooperation in the field of education. A number of Bosnian students studied in ADA University. We touched upon the issues of expanding the legal-treaty base. We agreed on signing a number of documents after this visit. Besides, I informed my counterpart on the negotiations process of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Azerbaijan’s position on this conflict. Bosnia and Herzegovina firmly supports the settlement of the conflict in the framework of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan. On behalf of the state and people of Azerbaijan I expressed our appreciation to him.

Q&A session:

APA. Question: My question is for Minister Elmar Mammadyarov. Armenian side has been making some statements on the conflict recently. Press-secretary of Armenian president has issued a statement that Nagorno-Karabakh must be independent or be annexed to Armenia. How could this affect on the settlement process of the conflict?

Elmar Mammadyarov: We are following it, as well. I personally and also our press-secretary made statements a number of times about that. Such unpleasant statements by Armenian side affects negatively the peace process. In Sankt-Petersburg meeting by Presidents, also in the joint meeting with co-chairs held in New-York we discussed that first and foremost the Armenian troops have to be withdrawn from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. About the issue of status, there are different opinions. It is clear to everyone that raising the issue of status means "killing" the peace process. In the next stage we can say that after the return of Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh to their lands, the status can be discussed. Because it is not possible to define the status without the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh. I repeat again, raising the issue of status means "killing" the peace process. This sort of statements have negative effects on the peace process. We have made a number of statements that we don’t want to see the imitation of negotiations. We must work on the peace negotiations. Armenia has not responded to France’s proposal of holding a meeting in Hamburg yet. That means they generally don’t support the peace process.

Thank you!

Full video of the joint press conference can be obtained from the following link