YEREVAN. – Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev continues making statements that have no connection with reality, Armenian National Assembly (NA) Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov said commenting on Aliyev’s statement that was made Wednesday in Baku and during official opening of the statue of Azerbaijani opera singer Bulbul. The Azerbaijani president had stated that Azerbaijan will not permit the existence of a second Armenian state, and there will come a time when the statues of Bulbul and other well-known Azerbaijani personalities will be erected in Nagorno-Karabakh’s Shushi city.      

“It’s not up to Azerbaijan to allow the people of Karabakh [, or Artsakh,] to master their own destiny. The people of Artsakh have earned that right in the battlefield and they fixed it with a referendum,” Sharmazanov noted.

“We should recall their [that is, the Azerbaijanis’] former leader Abulfaz Elchibey’s words: ‘There is no Azerbaijani, there is only Turkish.’ That is to say, Azerbaijan is nothing but a second Turkish state,” NA Deputy Speaker said, and added: “And with respect to erecting Bulbul’s statue in Shushi, I should note that its possibility is not exhausted. Azerbaijan must recognize [the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic] NKR’s independence, establish diplomatic ties with the Artsakh republic, open an embassy in Shushi, and [only then can it] place Bulbul’s, or any other [Azerbaijani] personalities’ statues in its embassy building, [and] with its own taste.”