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Kurz: Austria to support all efforts to achieve progress on Karabakh conflict

23 February 2017 07:09 (UTC +04:00)

Austria will support all efforts to achieve progress on conflict situations, including those in Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Georgia, Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz told the United Nations Security Council today, APA reported citing the UN’s press service.

“Austria has taken over the OSCE chairmanship at a critical moment. Everywhere we look, there are grave threats to peace and security,” he added.

He said that the Austrian chairmanship will seek to contribute to defusing existing conflicts, create a platform to assists States in their efforts to combat radicalization and violent extremism, and help rebuild trust between the OSCE States.

Multilateral cooperation is the only way to achieve peace, security and stability, and there is no alternative to it, said Austria’s foreign minister, underscoring the work of his country in its role as the OSCE Chair.

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 1996.

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.