Stepanakert airport’s opening pursues humanitarian purposes

“Azerbaijan is kicking up a fuss, trying to politicize the opening of Stepanakert airport. The three Co-Chairs have repeatedly made appeals not to politicize this issue: neither the NKR nor Armenia will take any steps aimed at politicizing the operation of the airport,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said at the meeting with reporters today, when discussing the opening of Stepanakert airport.

He said that in the presence of the Co-Chairs, the Azerbaijani side assumed obligations not to use force or threats of force against civilian aircraft.
“The Azerbaijani leadership – in flagrant violation of those obligations - is threatening to use force against civilian aviation,” the minister noted.
In his words, the opening of Stepanakert airport has nothing to do with the Karabakh settlement – the Minsk Group Co-Chairs have repeatedly stated that the airport’ s opening cannot predetermine the final status of Nagorno Karabakh.
“Neither Karabakh nor Armenia have linked the opening of Stepanakert airport with these issues,” Nalbandian said.

According to him, the airport’s opening pursues civil and humanitarian purposes only, while Azerbaijan aims to isolate the NKR ad force its people to leave the country.
“They have not succeeded and will never succeed in doing it,” the minister said.