Former US envoy: Separatist regime used Garabagh Armenians as hostages

The separatist regime used Armenians living in the Garabagh region of Azerbaijan as political hostages, Matthew Bryza, an international expert, board member of the Jamestown Foundation and former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan, has said.

He said it is now clear that the Armenians of Garabagh have been used as political hostages by their own and Armenia's "leaders," as well as the extremist political opposition of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who "would prefer conflict to peace," Report informs.

"Now that the separatist regime in Garabagh has been dissolved and the Armenian armed forces have been withdrawn from there, I think the last obstacle on the way to achieving a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan has been removed," Bryza noted, adding that the actual threat to Azerbaijan's security posed by Armenian illegal armed formations is now also gone.

According to him, if everything continues as it is now, real progress towards a peace treaty will soon be seen.