Tusk calls on Baku and Yerevan to abandon the aggressive rhetoric

The head of the European Council, Donald Tusk at a joint press conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Wednesday repeated his calls, he made a day earlier in Yerevan.

In particular, he stressed that the European Union supports a peaceful solution to the Karabakh conflict, and believes it is important to respect the truce and to abandon the aggressive rhetoric.

"We urge Armenia and Azerbaijan to demonstrate willingness to mutual compromise, to abandon rhetoric and actions that could increase tensions. Sometimes silence is better than aggressive rhetoric,"  he said.

Tusk called the unacceptable status quo in the Karabakh conflict."We are for a peaceful settlement and there is no alternative. We must abandon the idea of ​​military operations and radical  statements of enmity and hatred. The EU hopes that the efforts of the countries co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group will be the basis for peace.

Tusk said that the EU supports the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Azerbaijan.

In turn, Ilham Aliyev noted that confirmed the well-known position that the Karabakh conflict can be resolved only on the basis of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, and urged to put pressure on Armenia to liberate the occupied territories. Only after that it will be possible to speak about the normalization of relations, said Aliyev. -02D-