Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan will never agree to a referendum on the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, in an interview with Japanese newspaper Nikkei. 

‘We did not agree to this during the negotiations, and now that we have taken back a large part of the territory, it is out of the question’, Trend quoted him as saying.

‘As for self-determination, Armenians have already determined their own destiny. They have an independent state of Armenia. Imagine what would happen if Armenians determined their own destiny wherever they lived, how many small Armenias there would be in the world’, he added. 

Aliyev said that while self-determination was an ‘important factor in international law’, it must not violate the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. 

He suggested Nagorno-Karabakh could be granted ‘cultural autonomy’. 

‘As in any part of Azerbaijan, of course, Armenians living in Azerbaijan can have such connections. However, we will never allow the establishment of a second Armenian state on the territory of Azerbaijan. This is out of the question. In short, there will never be a referendum’, he concluded.