Azerbaijan hopes to sign a peace treaty with Armenia by the end of this year Foreign Policy Advisor to the President of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev, told TASS.

"We still hope to sign a peace treaty by the end of this year and call on the Armenian political leadership to take the most significant step - officially, with their signature, recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, including the Karabakh Economic Region of our republic, and commit to refraining from interfering in our country's internal affairs in the future. Including through attempts to bring our internal issues, such as issues of our interaction with our citizens of Armenian ethnic origin in Karabakh, to international platforms under the pretext of ensuring the rights and security of this population group. These are our citizens, and their rights and security will be ensured by the Constitution of Azerbaijan,” Hajiyev said.

At the same time, Hajiyev accused Armenia “of the policy of financing and inciting separatism on the territory of Azerbaijan.”

“As for the activities of international mediators, we highly appreciate their contribution to the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations. The role of Russia in this process, whose active mediation ensured the signing of the Trilateral Agreement in November 2020 that put an end to large-scale hostilities, is extremely important. The European Union and the United States are also making their contribution to the negotiation process. In general, each of the negotiation tracks is unique in its own way and helps to conduct a dialogue between Baku and Yerevan on the most problematic issues,” he noted.