Azerbaijan will not accept Yerevan's demand regarding Armenian residents of Karabakh

In an interview with Reuters, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said special security guarantees for Armenian residents of Karabakh were unnecessary, and the demand amounted to interference in Azerbaijanchr("39")s affairs.

"We donchr("39")t accept such a precondition ... for a number of reasons," he said.

"The most fundamental is the following: this is an internal, sovereign issue. The Azerbaijan constitution and a number of international conventions to which Azerbaijan is party provide all the necessary conditions in order to guarantee the rights of this population."

He said ethnic Armenians could still use and be educated in their own language and preserve their culture if they integrated into Azeri society and state structures like other ethnic and religious minorities.