MOSCOW. - Turkey, which actually keeps Armenia in blockade, is also the only country in the world to support the crimes of the Azerbaijani criminal authorities.

Armenian National Assembly (NA) Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov, who met with Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin Wednesday in the framework of his working visit to  Moscow, said the aforementioned.

Naryshkin thanked for Sharmazanov’s participation in the conference entitled “Inter-parliamentary cooperation for common prosperity of Eurasian countries in 21st century,”expressing hope that the work in this format will be continuous.

For his part, Sharmazanov thanked for the reception and highly appreciated the idea of holding such a conference. The NA Deputy Speaker specifically noted that as a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member and OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair, Russia is aware of the security issues in the region. In this context, Sharmazanov noted that in the beginning of April, the Azerbaijani authorities unleashed military aggression all along the Line of Contact with Nagorno-Karabakh, thereby violating the ceasefire agreement signed between Azerbaijan, Karabakh and Armenia in 1994.

According to Sharmazanov, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries, including Russia, must force Azerbaijan to return to the ceasefire agreement signed in 1994. Otherwise the war crimes of the Azerbaijani authorities claim numerous lives - both among soldiers and civilians, whom the Azerbaijani armed forces kill meanly - as well as children, whose murder is far from all the universal human rules, he said.

“We positively assess Russia’s efforts towards the oral agreement, thanks to which the Azerbaijani side conventionally returned to the ceasefire signed in 1994, but it is conventional since even today Azerbaijan regularly violates the ceasefire, this resulting in new casualties on the Armenian side,”Sharmazanov said.

Referring to the Turkish authorities, the Armenian NA Deputy Speaker expressed concern about the fact that Turkey, which actually keeps Armenia in blockade, is also the only country in the world to even support the crimes of the Azerbaijani criminal authorities.

Addressing Sergey Naryshkin, Sharmaznov reiterated that the Artsakh people must fully implement their right to self-determination and leading safe, free and independent life in their homeland.

Nobody and nothing can deprive the Artsakh people of their fundamental rights. Sharmazanov also thoroughly presented to Naryshkin the signature of the Azerbaijani armed forces, which completely repeats the practice of the ISIL terror group.

In response to the presented facts, Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin expressed his concern over the developments on the first days of April, which were the first actions of that scale since the signing of ceasefire agreement, this being really worrisome.

He also noted that the Russian delegation will take part in the “Against the Crime of Genocide”global forum to be held in Yerevan on April 23.