BEIRUT, LEBANON (3:00 P.M.) – Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on Thursday that a self-determination referendum will not be held in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Aliyev said during an interview with the Japanese newspaper Nikkei: “No, of course not. There will be no referendum in Nagorno-Karabakh and we will not agree to that.”
He added: “During the negotiations we did not give any approval, and this is not possible after we returned a large part of the territories.”
Azerbaijan and Armenia announced that they had reached an agreement on a humanitarian truce on October 18, but the two sides exchanged accusations of violating it.
This truce is the second of its kind that has been announced since the outbreak of the military escalation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, after the two sides reached a similar agreement in Moscow on the 10th of the same month during a tripartite meeting at the level of foreign ministers with the participation of Russia.
On September 27, armed clashes erupted on the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region and adjacent areas, in the most dangerous escalation between the two parties in nearly three decades, amid mutual accusations of starting hostilities and bringing in foreign militants.
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