“We support the decision on taking various measures, investigating incidents, planning “road map” for comprehensive peace negotiations, as well as planning a second meeting of the presidents in the near future,” Mard said.
The EU delegation head noted that there is no military solution to the [Nagorno-Karabakh conflict].
The conflict must be resolved through peaceful negotiations in which the presidents and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are playing a key role, she stressed.
Mard also recalled the meeting of EU High Representative Federica Mogherini with the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mogherini visited Azerbaijan in late February. She expressed desire to actively deal with this problem and become a partner of the OSCE Minsk Group in this issue,” she concluded.
A meeting was held in Vienna May 16 involving President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, French Minister of State for European Affairs Harlem Desir, OSCE Minsk group co-chairs, and special representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.
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 OSCE 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, US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.
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