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12 July 2017

Apa

The issue of creating any mechanisms was not discussed at the meeting of Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov with his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian in Brussels July 11, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Hikmat Hajiyev told APA.

At the meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in Brussels, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group proposed to hold another meeting at the ministerial level in New York within the framework of the UN General Assembly session and the Azerbaijani side consented to the proposal, Hajiyev said.

The co-chairs also proposed to hold a meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia, he noted.

The co-chairs’ proposal will be reported to the countries’ presidents by their foreign ministers, Hajiyev said. 

He added that in autumn 2017, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group will visit the South Caucasus region again.

During the Brussels meeting, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov reiterated that in order to reduce tensions and ensure security in the region, the Armenian armed forces must be withdrawn from the occupied Azerbaijani territories according to the plan of the mediators, Hajiyev said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the CSCE (OSCE after the Budapest summit held in Dec.1994) Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, the US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1994.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.