Azerbaijan is trying to represent the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh) as a geopolitical or a religious issue, head of Armenian parliament’s foreign relations committee Armen Ashotyan said on Wednesday, December 20.

Addressing the 17th session of the EU-Armenia parliamentary cooperation, Ashotyan called for preventing such misinterpretations.

“Imagine how dangerous it would be for the Karabakh conflict to become a religious issue, given the rise of the Islamic State group,” Ashotyan said.

“It will be very dangerous if the civilized world fails to prevent Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev from representing the issue as a religious conflict.”