News - Azerbaijan says it has no intention of invading Armenia

Azerbaijan has no intention of taking military action to create a land corridor in southern Armenia, the foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijan's president said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. Azerbaijan's military operation last week to take control of ethnic Armenian-dominated Nagorno-Karabakh has stoked Armenian fears that Baku may now use force to create a corridor through Armenia to Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave. But Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, said Baku only wanted to create transport links to Nakhchivan through Armenia, which he said would benefit both countries and the wider region. "Azerbaijan doesn't have any military goals or objectives on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, that's ... completely out of Azerbaijan's agenda," he told Reuters. "Our suggestion to Armenia is about building connectivity lines, transport lines, in a very peaceful manner," he said, speaking in Brussels after EU-hosted talks with Armenian Security Council secretary Armen Grigoryan, and European officials. Hajiyev's comments came the day after Aliyev held talks with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan at which he hinted at the prospect of creating such a land corridor, which would also give Azerbaijan a direct link to close ally Turkey. At the Brussels talks, officials discussed a possible meeting between Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a European summit in Granada, Spain, on October 5.