Armenia will not take part in any large-scale regional projects in the energy sector or transport unless its forces pull out of Azerbaijani lands, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan said in an interview with Turkish mass media, the text of which was released Saturday night by the official news agency Azertac. He said it in the context of peace settlement of the dragged out conflict in Karabakh, a mostly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan where tensions have been flaring with a variable degree of intensity from the end of the 1980’s. This country views settlement of that conflict only in the light of maintaining its own territorial integrity, Aliyev said. “The issue can’t be discussed in any way outside that context,” he indicated. “But Karabakh will never be incorporated into Armenia and will never become an independent country.” He said however that the enclave might have the status of a broad autonomy within the Azerbaijani Republic. Aliyev made reference to a number of European countries that have such autonomies, adding that the Azerbaijani government is scrutinizing their experience and it can definitely be used here. He believes peace settlement of that conflict is a feasible target if all the sides observe international norms of law and if mediators add more energy to mediating activity. Aliyev indicated that the Karabakh conflict poses a problem for Armenia, too, since that country has found itself isolated from all major regional projects like the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline, and the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway, the construction of which may begin soon. (Itar-Tass)