"Next week, the meeting will take place in Russia, in St. Petersburg. We are hoping that the issue can and must be resolved in a peaceful way. In order to achieve this, Armenia must reject its aggressive policies and leave our territory," Aliyev said on Saturday.
Azerbaijan does not seek to hold meaningless talks, he stressed, adding that it is time for concrete step to be taken toward resolving the Karabakh conflict as soon as possible.
"If someone thinks that we will continue to hold meaningless talks for another 20 years, they are mistaken…Meaningful talks must start immediately and unconditionally. If that happens, a peaceful settlement can be hastened,"
The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before the latter proclaimed independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The warring sides agreed to a cessation of hostilities in 1994.
The violence in Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway region with a predominantly Armenian population, escalated on April 2. Baku and Yerevan have accused each other of provoking hostilities that led to multiple deaths on both sides.
