BAKU. Feb 7 (Interfax) - Baku sees Swiss National Council President Dominique de Buman's statement regarding the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as "support of segregation," the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's press secretary, Hikmat Hajiyev, said.
De Buman said in Yerevan on Tuesday that the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh should be settled through negotiations and based on UN conventions and the right of nations to self-determination.
"In other words, the thoughts aired by Dominique de Buman in Yerevan can be viewed as support of segregation and racism," Hajiyev said.
"Overstepping his official powers as speaker of the National Council of Switzerland, de Buman's biased statements go against Switzerland's policy of neutrality and damage the process of settling the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh," Hajiyev said.
He recalled that de Buman had visited Nagorno-Karabakh in 2012 in violation of Azerbaijani law.
"That visit and the statements he made today in Yerevan condone the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by the Armenian Armed Forces and the bloody ethnic cleansing of the Azeri population in the conflict area," Hajiyev said.